Milei's victory is an international marker, of sorts, for America’s billionaires and largest corporations, who share his desire to end liberal democracy and the so-called “welfare state”...
People will give up basic rights to meet basic needs always. Make prices high enough and average workers feel they have no choice. People need food and shelter first. Maslow hierarchy. That can happen here too
This has been happening in Argentina for a long time.
I still have heartburn over the right-wing dictatorship from 1976 to 1983. 30,000 missing. 500 babies stolen. Many were Jews. Bombing of the Israeli embassy 1n 1992. The Jewish Community Center in 1994. Milei is in denial. Never happened. If it did Argentina had nothing to do with it.
I wonder what will happen to the economy if the dollar becomes their currency. I also wonder what will happen to the dollar. Argentina has been part of BRICS, which IMHO has been trying to undermine our currency and our economy.
If the dollar becomes the currency Daniel, there will be a depression, as there will be a shortage of money, and Argentina will become a subsidiary through it's central bank,which will be an off shore Branch of Citicorp, as Panama is. The way that Argentina can expand their money supply is by borrowing, which will cause inflation, or by convincing the people to use Credit cards, like Citibank did in Panama, and that too will cause inflation, and misery as the people try to pay off their cards with minimum payments. The peasants won't qualify for credit cards, so SOL, or if they do the interest rates will eat up their monthly payments,and their debt will climb, like it does for Americans.
If one pays the minimum monthly on a credit card, your debt is for ever, and when you die, the first dibs on the estate are your creditors.
Just look at the price of real estate. A baby born into this world is penniless and will have to compete with trillionaires for a piece of pie. Lots of luck not ending up a slave or soldier or breeder.
If enough people paid more attention and put a little more balance into the economy and see to it that workers receive a fair wage for their work that could all change. You probably don't remember, but there was a time there was an actual middle class. And then the GOP decided it wasn't Grand enough and elected leaders and changed laws so they got a bigger share of the pie. Then that share started getting bigger and bigger and bigger. That's how we got here. They even made sure that what was happening in the running of the country wasn't taught in school - so people got more and more ignorant and less and less wages. Wake up y'all we did this to ourselves. Stop voting for people who want to hoard the wealth and make sure to keep the poor people poor. #NeverVoteRepublican
Which is ridiculous and never works very well for very long. Once they take away your basic rights, they no longer have to see that you have your basic needs met.
Anybody who trusts people who have been robbing and hoarding, and is waiting for "trickle down" to get to them is uninformed.
Maybe that's why they keep voting against themselves and making sure the rich get richer and the poor get poorer.
Never trust Republicans to do anything for you. They only care about the money.
All over the world, the global billionaires have managed to squeeze one society after another into a form of serfdom that causes desperation. In that desperation people vote for saviors like Trump and Milei. I just don't think it will get better because societies will be under increasing pressure because of climate disaster and the forced migration of people because of it.
Note other caudillos - from Franco- Peron- Trujillo- to Trump.
Right now it's a tossup whether Madrid or Miami is the de facto capitol of Argentina. Same for Venezuela, Colombia, etc.
I don't think there's an equivalent in Europe or Asia.
Peron was the prototype. He was "the third way" during the cold war. Although Peronism, a/k/a justicialism, was supposedly a labor and left-leaning Argentine political movement sounds about the same.
He who controls money controls all of America. Money is the tool of control. He who has the money controls America, we the peasants are naught more than well fed, comfortable, resources.
Medieval England had three classes. Serf, Freeman and Noble. Serfs were bound to the land, and its owner, whoever that was. The freeman was free to travel and employ his skill, where ever he could find work.
Otherwise he lived the life of a serf. Americans are the medieval Freeman, save those that are bound to their employer, not legally but by a pay check, which is more or less the same situation as serfs. Everyone needs to eat, and that need is what motivates people to accept their condition, and why Argentinians voted to become the modern equivalent of serfs, and America is on the verge of doing the same, becoming the property, the resource of modern nobility.
All land was "common" in the commonwealth colonies, unless granted by the government to a specific person.
IMHO Argentina has no such history. No history of common law. Justinian law. In Argentina, there were six coups d'état during the 20th century: in 1930, 1943, 1955, 1962, 1966 and 1976. The first four established interim dictatorships, while the last two established dictatorships of permanent type on the model of a bureaucratic-authoritarian state.
Adverse possession a common law right, based on allodial rights, enfranchise as legislative in America, also pertains to the state of Israel.
By the way. Americans are no sovereign. My mortgage is paid off, but I hold the land in Fee Simple title, a device of Edward I.
The state of Washington owns my property, but per the device of Fee Simple. I can occupy it, pass it on to heirs, sell it so long as I obey the laws of the State. If I don't the reeve of the shire (sheriff) can dispossess me and take my property for the sovereign state., and receive his cut from the proceeds of the sale.
What a great report Thom. I never heard much about this on our corporate owned news. It sounds right out of the Reagan playbook. Give the rich tax breaks, borrow money, let immigrants in, ship jobs overseas, and if that is not bad enough cause supply line shortages, like what we saw in Southern California during covid, all the ships sitting waiting to get unloaded. Coupled with the oil producers jacking up oil prices anytime they want to cause inflation and then have the Federal reserve raising interest rates like that will stop inflation. In other words, the oligarchs create the crisis (McConnel),and blame the left and get elected because the voters are just to detached from reality to figure out what's going on.
There is an article on raw story that can be accessed on Google. Called, "Donald Trump Jr.: China taking over World reserve currency could be 'good thing' to teach US a 'lesson'" . Still the people who have benefited from a civilized society are ungrateful. Groveling from the he rich and the religious for food will not work out well.
The purpose of government is to keep the masses civilized so the merchants can prosper! The immigrants coming into America are trying to escape capitalist dictatorships already. Maybe this is just part of the big die off plan in order to maintain just young strong healthy slaves, everyone else can perish. What can we expect from the party of liars, I mean life? We must all vote for Biden in order to head off this train wreck and hope we can throw them all in prison, which looks very doubtful.
Good post Bob. By bringing up immigrants, you will touch a nerve with some bleeding hearts, that lack the capability of analytical thinking.
As I pointed out those that are piling up on our border, are conservative Catholics, Evangelicals and Pentecostals,that means patriarchal, misogynistic and homophobic.
In Panama a guy who consorts with drag queens, cross dressers is not called queer, he is a malante (spelling, I have never seen the word printed, only spoken), and is socially acceptable, as he is the top not the bottom, and men can't get pregant, thus the wife is not publicly shamed into divorcing him.
The immigrants at the border are the natural constituency of the Republicans and the Trumpists, and despite the Republican and Trumps policy and disdain of Hispanic immigrants, they do wind up voting for him, especially since the new CEO of Univision is a Trump humper
The immigrants from Islamic countries are by nature of their religion, anti semitic, and a perfect fit for the Republican party, and will either vote for Trump or sit out the election, provided they are naturalized citizens, most are here on student visas, and/or have overstayed their visas.
Argentinians are already suffering from the climate crisis, especially with agriculture and the subsequent prices. Their glaciers are almost gone. Milei is willfully ignorant and a liar---sounds familiar.
The turnout of the election was 76%, despite their mandatory voting. Roughly a fourth sat this one out. Approximately 42% of the population elected this a-hole, and that too sounds familiar. Unfortunately, the other roughly 58% will also suffer the consequences.
A crazy, destructive, climate crisis denier and a host of greedy opportunist people and corporations to help him equals a recipe for further pain. Your driver said it couldn't get any worse; the gentleman you walked with understood the driver's feelings. And there is the real problem, basing votes on feelings instead of logic.
Another horrible man and another horrible experiment, and time for another song about tears and Argentina.
I don't wish to live in a country that this describes, and which we can expect to see if the republicans manage to steal control next election. I hope they'll make suicide drugs available for all who wish to 'opt out.' Who wants to live in a society of desperation, poverty, sickness, disease, and people forced to sell their body parts or prostitute their children? That is what you are describing, and I have no doubt it would become a reality. People in this country frustrate me with their continued ignorance and their refusal to heed to warnings.
Arlene, I'm with you about not wanting to live in a "republican-led" America. But they want a theocratic Christian nation as well, which doesn't allow suicide because it's supposedly a sin. So anyone who does not succeed at it would be arrested and jailed, or worse! They wouldn't be compassionate like Canada is, unfortunately. I hear they don't think much of mental health care either. Wonder why...
Yes, regrettably you are right. It is terrifying. Harken thoughts back to witch trials and the crazies of the puritan times, because - like the dark ages, women will be the biggest victims of their 'vengeance.' and their vile hypocrisy.
It's a grotesque irony when the abused become the most vehement supporters of their tormentor's power.
The fascists and the libertarians have leveraged their policies into a massive global wrecking-ball which has demolished society after society and provides the ruin necessary as reason for radical right wing "remedies". Of course they point to the left for a society now in shambles, when in fact the only fault the left is burdened with is the one of not beating the piss out of these policies in the first place. It's like watching someone set fire to a house, and not being able or willing to stop them, you're somehow now the arsonist because the person who actually did do it claims to be a far greater victim of your calling them on it and therefore, in an embarrassing performance of incomprehensible ridicularity, they should be in charge of and profit from any and all efforts to reconstruct the razed building.
And in the world I know, this scenario fools enough of the people, most of the time. It's astounding.
The GOP are certainly experiencing their wettest of daydreams as they lecherously leer at the soon to be forced-disrobing of Argentinian society. Milei's victory is a snuff film for perverts of power the world over.
What doesn't help is most people in the U.S. seem to have no idea that Argentina, Chile, Uruguay and southern Brazil are basically European countries in their overall makeup, urbanization and culture. Walk around Buenos Aires and you could be in Rome or Barcelona. But if "North Americans" (I'm excluding Canadians here) just write off the problems and "solutions" there as though it involved stereotypical Latin Americans living in some sort of Mexican border town, they won't understand what is really happening in Argentina. Then of course they won't have a clue on how such things could reflect on their own way of life.
Probably the ultimate in ignorance here was expressed by Reagan after a trip to Latin America in 1982. When asked about it, his brilliant reply was, "I went down to find out from them and learn their views. You'd be surprised. They're all individual countries."
In Latin America the Europeans, or mestizo's are the middle and ruling class, the "Indians" and Blacks are the peasants,kept in place by preachers, priests, press and police.
It depends on the country, with Bolivia for example moving away from that model. To some extent one's acculturation to the ruling class in language and customs makes a difference over race, as in Mexico. And Uruguay's minorities are a small part of the population, while Argentina has a mixed race population but something like over 90% are full or partial European ancestry so that may mute the issue somewhat. On the other hand I agree that by and large the whiter you are the higher your social class tends to be, something that has been very true for a long time there. A sharp example is the Dominican Republic, where the antipathy to Haitians is so strong that even Dominicans of African descent are at the bottom. Cuba, which naturally claims to have no racism, certainly does have it somewhat along the same lines. Again, this is topic is another example of differences in these countries, something not noticed by many casual visitors. And regarding the priests: Catholicism isn’t as strong as it used to be. Birth rates have dropped a lot in the region and evangelical Protestants are offering more social hope than many in the church, and getting converts too.
On the topic of Cuba, I recommend “Castro, the Blacks, and Africa” by Cuba native Carlos Moore. Much of the ruling party in Cuba is of white European descent, as is Díaz Canel himself. They may have a few Cubans of mixed ethnic ancestry or Afro Cubans in token positions of power, but the people in charge are predominantly of European ancestry. There is also blatant racial discrimination in the tourist trade, where employers express an open preference for employees of European origin and don’t hire people of mixed ethnic ancestry or Afro Cubans. The ads that specify for applicants to be of “good appearance” are hints of this.
If we survive as a democracy in 2024, I’m starting to think that should require a more comprehensive exam covering civics, government, history and economics for a HS degree. I’m just not sure a democracy can survive without a well educated citizenry.
Some school systems have never abandoned this requirement. It got ditched in many cases because of school systems reorienting themselves toward “teaching toward the test.” Schools would abandon topics not covered by standardized testing, which is why you heard about schools abandoning foreign language study and cursive handwriting. When I graduated from high school, I had to take summer school for American government and economics, which were required for me to get my high school diploma.
I’ll play. Or...Argentina realizes very early one not only can and will things get worse under an insane albeit “intelligent” leader, their suffering will be a harbinger for the rest of the world. Here’s another “Mr. Only I Can Fix it” and people are going to die.
It’s not going to go well for the people of Argentina and unfortunately, just like the U.S. in 2016, they’ll have years to contemplate their freedom was not worth losing over a conman and the billionaire backers who manipulated Argentinians into believing they ever needed the “Steve Bannon of the Southern Hemisphere”.
We’ve been aware of our corrupt press and the lies they manufacture on an hourly basis. Trying to flog us into believing TFFG is winning...anything. So far in the real world he’s in deep trouble and it’s not going away.
And just to throw this out there...I don’t fir one second believe it was a free and fair election.
He isn't the first. Before WW I they were probably at a par with the US economically.
Yesterday, I wrote about the Dulles family re Cuba. John Foster Dulles was in the New York law firm Sullivan & Cromwell. His grandfather, John W. Foster, and his uncle, Robert Lansing, both served as United States Secretary of State. He was part of our negotiating team at the Treaty of Versailles, and later posted to Argentina.
Our relations soured when Argentina refused to join the Allies in WWI. Argentina had large British and German populations and both countries had made large-scale investments in Argentina. However, as a prosperous neutral it greatly expanded trade with the United States during the war and exported meat, grain and wool to the Allies particularly to Britain, providing generous loans and becoming a net creditor to the Allied side, a policy known as "benevolent neutrality.
The relationship between Argentina and the United States was ambivalent at best. Argentine public intellectuals frequently argued in the national press that the U.S. represented the greatest threat to Argentina's political and economic ambitions, if not sovereignty. John Dulles represented both the US and his law firm and was pictured in Argentina as the enemy. In fact the family were closely aligned, if now in control of entities like United Fruit, now Chiquita Banana. We were in direct competition for markets for several commodities. Controlled some of their companies.
Thus, we became the enemy. Relations were severely strained in the era of World War II, when Argentina refused to declare war on Nazi Germany, and became the only Latin American nation not to receive American aid. Relations continued to be difficult when the Perons were in power.
Relations were again strained in 1982 after the US supported the United Kingdom against Argentina. We call them the Falklands. They call them the Malvinas.
Since 1998, Argentina has been a major non-NATO ally, partly owing to Argentina's assistance to the United States in the Gulf War.
How do they get the population to go along: "abortion in baby killing." But starving babies isn't baby killing" The appeal to our lower brain which seeks to protect the species sidetracks critical thinking. Manipulate the masses who are striving to survive one day at a time.
IMHO there is something to Jung's collective racist subconscious theory.
The pope, who is Argentinian, is castigated here by members of his own clergy, i.e. the Council of Bishops,. He recently demoted Bishop Strickland, who holds that view. Maybe he'll intercede.
Mr. Solomon. I have greatly appreciated your comments. They often contain esoteric knowledge which is of help to the rest of us who are uninitiated into legal/historical knowledge of the sort you seem to be steeped in.
However, I cannot go along with your recommendation of Eric Hoffer's TRUE BELIEVER. It is guilty of the logically prohibited mistake of petitio principii, or reasoning in a circle. The book is not just loaded with tautologies; it is itself a drawn out tautology. This is a mistake found in almost all psychological reductionist explanations of human behavior. He locates the source of human behavior within individual human beings. This is a tautology, which gets us no closer to an explanation than saying: "It is what it is because it is what it is." It is a truism to say that something within each of us motivates us to behave. And this gets us nowhere. This is the error shared by all psychological reductionist explanations.
Of course humans have motives to do what they do, including a "true believer." This is a truism, a tautology. The question Hoffer never asks, and therefore never answers is: How do we come to acquire these motives?
I see that in passing, you also mention Carl Jung. He is guilty of the same logical fallacy. But for good measure he throws in lots of unverified assumptions as though they are empirically derived conclusions. I found Jung to be more sophisticated in his constructs than Hoffer, whose elements are simple by comparison. But both are guilty of invalid logical argumentation.
In rejecting a theory, the rejector is not epistemologically required to offer an alternative explanation. However, I am aware of some alternatives, which I humbly recommend: THE PARANOID STYLE IN AMERICAN POLITICS written in the 1960s by Richard Hofstadter. Also STRANGERS IN THEIR OWN LAND by Arlie Russell Hochschild published in 2018. I find STRANGERS....... to be the more insightful of the two. Hofstadter was closer to what I would call a Political Scientist. He did not seem to have been an actual psychological reductionist. But he trod uncomfortably close to that path.
The act authorizes banks to set up Foreign branches. The Bank of Panama was founded as a subsidary of City Bank. Panamanian currency is the American Dollar,and it's coins are printed in the Philadelphia mint of the same stock, weight, size as American coins, the only difference is the image stamped on the obverse and reverse.
Per international law, Panama is not a sovereign country, and that is why the world did not stand up in protest when GHW Bush, sent his police force (our military) in to arrest the CIA bagman, Noriega.
If Argentina goes to the dollar, what follows will be a depression and a shortage of money.
Panama was a low cost of living country, until in the 1980's Citigroup launched a massive PR campaign to convince people to use credit cards (theirs of course), in short order it became a mass consumer society, and prices sky rocketed. Because the primal cause of inflation is the interest on debts, public and private.
Undeveloped nations, unless they have a commodity in great demand on the global market, have no choice but to print their money, and under pressure they print and print.And to buy exports like wheat, cars, refrigerators and all consumer goods they have to use dollars, and to get dollars they either have to trade, and Argentina's main export is beef, or borrow from the IMF and the IMF exacts a draconian commitment, to cut social services spending, that the investors reap the reward of profit on their investment.
The IMF uses SDR's (Special Drawing Rights) and dollars to issue loans to nations
From my 1984 research
). The SDR is valued at .888671 grams($35 oz). Gold acts as outside (internationa1) money, while credit acts as inside (national) money (p.l29 Monetary Reform and the Price of Gold). The value of the SDR remains stable while all other currencies fluctuate against it in relation to the U.S. DOLLAR.(p.l97, International Trade and Investment, A Managerial Approach,Alex O. Williams, Wiley Interscience Pub,1982, 461 pages). A question to which I don't yet have an answer,"'s the SDR convertible on the outside at market or weighted average par of gold." 151. P. 49 Monetary Reform and the Price of Gold. 152. A parallel example: After the collapse of Germany in 1945, many bureaucracies of the Third Reich, including SS intelligence, continued to function for months and years.
In1984 the SDR was valued at a percentage of member countries currency. A complicated formula. A percentage of the dollar and now a percentage of the Euro and a percentage of the British pound.
Thom, thanks for this astute and terrifying rundown. It occurs to me that Millei's election seems of a piece with all the other international electoral developments funded by Mercer money and informed by Bannon's strategic thinking. Is there any reason to believe that Millei's election may have been bankrolled by that team?
Thom, think Mussolini. Corporations, companies, etc. basic to him. He convinced Hitler. People are nothing compared to Corps. & Co. We are doing the same. Capitalism is doing the same. Huge wage gap and we struggle. Try FREEDOM! Do you have the FREEDOM to be homosexual? I could send you a nice clip from West Wing if you want it. Too much to say. Paul
A Plantation Economy complete w/ Proles and Wage-Slaves : Argentina, then, has become a newborn 12th state of what was the,1860, Southern Confederacy . . . Racially exclusive, not unlike a brain in a dropped beaker which has been shattered on the floor of the political laboratory.
A brain trust which is now full of imbedded glass shards, and has become indirectly homicidal to the poor and likely genocidal to the racial/religious other. Think '78-'83: 30,000.
A chainsaw wielding clown. this fringy Bozo is a somewhat entertaining, altogether scary Frankenstein monster in ill-fitting sheep's clothing.
Hey, if one is broke, Jewish, or non-White, what could possibly go wrong ?!! s/
Argentians are going to wake up with a nasty hangover, and they deserve it. The next group of immigrants showing up on our border.. Argentinians?
The IMF is a front for financial instiutions. The IMF's purpose is like a board of governors. They exist to provide the maximum possible rate of return on investments.
They have destroyed the social safety net of what they call P.I.G S countries Portugal, Ireland, Greece and Spain.
And that leads to destabilization, with a battle between left and right, and of course the right wing is fully funded, and the country slides into fascism.
The IMF has used their power to destablize Latin America. The forced Bolivia to sell it's water to Halliburton, it forces African countries to privatize its water. Some villages in Africa and Latin America have a child standing at the village pump collecting 5 cents to fill a jug, those that can't afford it drink from ditches and ponds, then they become infected with parasites and die.
Here is an extract from a paper I wrote for my MBA, written in 1984, it is dated, but shows the power and damage done by the IMF
The problems of the Fed in managing the credit of the US pale in comparison to the pressures exerted on it by competition and "higher headquarters" The rising star in the corporate struggle is the International Monetary Fund (LMF). The special relationship of the IMF to Congress and the Presidency has enabled its director, Jacques De Larosiere, to ingratiate himself with the higher operating mechanism (B.I.S.). The IMF has demonstrated its profound ability to force the U.S. authorities to refund its activities and refinance potentially defaulting loans. 111
The IMF has also demonstrated its muscle by caging Brazil. 112 and decimating that country on behalf of the crown. Forcing the government to act in accordance with guidance from the B.I.S. 113 The voters of Brazil reacted violently to failed efforts evict IMF representatives. 114 . However, the IMF prevailed and Decree 2025 now takes $40 million in wages from Brazilians and living standards are being reduced. When the news of the capitulation of the Brazilian congress to IMF (B.I.S.) demands broke some 60,000 auto workers walked off the job in Sao Paulo.
Peru has been more troublesome. The IMF was dealt a set back when Peruvians rejected the IMF plans to strip the country of its natural resources. 115 They apparently learned their lesson from Chile was foolish enough to be influenced by Friedmans Chicago Boys 116 and on Nov 13, 83 the voters completely rejectedLthe IMF hunger and starvation proposals. Peru has developed a thriving underground (free enterprise) economy which employs 2/3rds of the population. 117 It has also been ravaged by minions of the IMF and BIS, who receive weapons and funds to wage a guerilla war under the banner of the Shining Path. If this “Marxist” campaign should win, then Peru will fall into line.
In Columbia the IMF has been successful in thwarting the Columbian government crusade against cocaine and marijuana. In a veiled reference Zeue Zuricher Zeitung editorialized that "Columbia could resort to unlicensed exports of the most diversified types(cocaine and marijuana), it went on to say that "should the governments moralizing campaign result in this area also declining Columbia could find itself, even with imports reduced no longer in a position to obtain foreign exhange required to maintain its economy. 118
Argentina must be chalked up as a success. Tremendous infusions of money and the threat of foreclosure, aided by recent naval manuevers in the Carribean, have enabled the Radical Civic Union (leftist) party togain control of Argentina. The Minister of Economy, Grinspun. 119 Is now
in charge of the nations finance and the military leadership is being hauled before a Neuremburglike" courts martial120Their elimination will insure that there is no repeat of the Chilean experience. 121
That Argentia can be considered secured is evidenced by the return of the "leftist", Jacobo Timmerman. 122 and reclamation of his newspaper l23. Paul Prebisch 124 has been taken into President Alfonsins cabinet and can be expected to act accordingly.
Chile, as noted previously, is in a delayed holding action thanks to Milton Friedman's country denuding Industrial base destroying influence. 125 The influence of the IMF in forcing revolution causing austerity measures an Chile is well documented in the Wall Street Journal Index .126
Bolivian capitualation was gained earlier this year when the withholding of hard currency caused the economic conditions and violence that enabled a "leftist" government to assume power. In a package deal to secure IMF re‑funding the new regime extradicted (in violation of its own laws), alleged war criminal Klaus Altmann to France. 127 Subsequent food riots, as a result of President Siles Zuaszo's capitulation to IMF demands 128 on Nov 17, 83 have threatened this "democratic" government
President Reagan’s bid to cut funding to the International Development Association (IDA) a World Bank Affiliate that makes no interest loans to poorer countries was much heralded by fiscal conservatives, but had the effect of holding back narcotics from a drug addict. This move forces LDC's to go to IMF and the IMF in turn forces "social & political change" in return for another dose of debt narcotic. In the modern world LDC's can not exist without "hard currency." (dollars or SDR's). The only source of these funds are international financial mechanisms. 129
The IMF is also forcing radical changes on Marcos in the Philipinnes, again selective interpretation of the news has generated a climate favorable to De Larosiere's goals. 130
So I asked the question above. Euro dollars? Petrodollars? Argentinodollars?
Will they affect the value of our currency?
So today, for the second time this month a "giant of the crypto world has been felled by federal charges. Zhao, who appeared Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Seattle, faces as much as 18 months in prison for violating for he Bank Secrecy Act, according to sentencing guidelines. He will be fined $50 million and is barred from working with the exchange for three years, court filings show."
Crypto is really just another form of alchemy. Lead into gold? Money for nothing ...and the chicks for free.
When the dollar replaces the local currency is there an affect here? After Mexico when the peso was devalued in 1982, there were discussions that the dollar could replace all other currency. Even in Cuba, the dollar was the de facto currency, even when it had been criminalized.
Critics in the developing world are especially uneasy about America's willingness to use the dollar's global influence to impose financial sanctions against adversaries — as it did to Russia after the invasion of Ukraine last year. They also complain that fluctuations in the dollar can destabilize their economies.
Argentinians moving to America was my first thought also. I think there are some argentinians already here. We better get to Canada while the gittens good or mary a Chinese woman and move to China? If China doesn't get a handle on its billionaires, it will suffer the same fate as America and all other unlimited greed capitalist countries.
Eurodollars, petrodollars, Argentine dollars are still dollars. The source if the Federal Reserves fractional reserve system. They don't affect the value of the dollar, unless they were created out of debt via the fractional reserve system. And the U.S. Budget has money in it for buying oil from foreign nations, which we don't need to do for our own sovereignty, we export more oil than we consume, and would be independent of foreign oil, were not for Exxon Mobil, BP, Shell all need to export oil and gasoline for profit.
They export, for profit, so much that we then have to import oil, which benefits them as well. International trade is what makes billionaires, not just ripping off consumers.
Why do administrations court China, and under developed countries? They are trade representatives for those that own this country.
The initial impact of Argentina going to the dollar, will be a shortage of money, and that means a depression., unless the IMF, ships in pallet loads of money as it did in Afghanistan.
Since money is a created by debt (public and private), the flow of dollars will be slow, and
Argentina will have to rely on exports to get dollars or IMF drawing rights, more inflation.
I doubt it produces enough exports (I am not up on it's Milton Friedman competitive advantage), so it will have to borrow, unless Citicorp can, and it will repeat its success with Panama and convince people to use credit cards and go in debt, and that too will lead to inflation, as the primal cause of inflation is the interest on debts (public and private)
To go to the dollar, the Bank of Argentina must be rechartered as a Central Bank, ans an off shore subsidiary of a member of the Federal Reserve, per the 1919 Edge act, which effectively created the Bank of Panama and the Bank of Liberia Most likely Citicorp as it has experience in creating off shore national banks.
I have to report that many speculators made their fortunes divining the vigorish between the respective value of dollars in Geneva, Riyadh and Nueva York.
People will give up basic rights to meet basic needs always. Make prices high enough and average workers feel they have no choice. People need food and shelter first. Maslow hierarchy. That can happen here too
This has been happening in Argentina for a long time.
I still have heartburn over the right-wing dictatorship from 1976 to 1983. 30,000 missing. 500 babies stolen. Many were Jews. Bombing of the Israeli embassy 1n 1992. The Jewish Community Center in 1994. Milei is in denial. Never happened. If it did Argentina had nothing to do with it.
I wonder what will happen to the economy if the dollar becomes their currency. I also wonder what will happen to the dollar. Argentina has been part of BRICS, which IMHO has been trying to undermine our currency and our economy.
If the dollar becomes the currency Daniel, there will be a depression, as there will be a shortage of money, and Argentina will become a subsidiary through it's central bank,which will be an off shore Branch of Citicorp, as Panama is. The way that Argentina can expand their money supply is by borrowing, which will cause inflation, or by convincing the people to use Credit cards, like Citibank did in Panama, and that too will cause inflation, and misery as the people try to pay off their cards with minimum payments. The peasants won't qualify for credit cards, so SOL, or if they do the interest rates will eat up their monthly payments,and their debt will climb, like it does for Americans.
If one pays the minimum monthly on a credit card, your debt is for ever, and when you die, the first dibs on the estate are your creditors.
Just look at the price of real estate. A baby born into this world is penniless and will have to compete with trillionaires for a piece of pie. Lots of luck not ending up a slave or soldier or breeder.
If enough people paid more attention and put a little more balance into the economy and see to it that workers receive a fair wage for their work that could all change. You probably don't remember, but there was a time there was an actual middle class. And then the GOP decided it wasn't Grand enough and elected leaders and changed laws so they got a bigger share of the pie. Then that share started getting bigger and bigger and bigger. That's how we got here. They even made sure that what was happening in the running of the country wasn't taught in school - so people got more and more ignorant and less and less wages. Wake up y'all we did this to ourselves. Stop voting for people who want to hoard the wealth and make sure to keep the poor people poor. #NeverVoteRepublican
Which is ridiculous and never works very well for very long. Once they take away your basic rights, they no longer have to see that you have your basic needs met.
Anybody who trusts people who have been robbing and hoarding, and is waiting for "trickle down" to get to them is uninformed.
Maybe that's why they keep voting against themselves and making sure the rich get richer and the poor get poorer.
Never trust Republicans to do anything for you. They only care about the money.
All over the world, the global billionaires have managed to squeeze one society after another into a form of serfdom that causes desperation. In that desperation people vote for saviors like Trump and Milei. I just don't think it will get better because societies will be under increasing pressure because of climate disaster and the forced migration of people because of it.
Note other caudillos - from Franco- Peron- Trujillo- to Trump.
Right now it's a tossup whether Madrid or Miami is the de facto capitol of Argentina. Same for Venezuela, Colombia, etc.
I don't think there's an equivalent in Europe or Asia.
Peron was the prototype. He was "the third way" during the cold war. Although Peronism, a/k/a justicialism, was supposedly a labor and left-leaning Argentine political movement sounds about the same.
He who controls money controls all of America. Money is the tool of control. He who has the money controls America, we the peasants are naught more than well fed, comfortable, resources.
Medieval England had three classes. Serf, Freeman and Noble. Serfs were bound to the land, and its owner, whoever that was. The freeman was free to travel and employ his skill, where ever he could find work.
Otherwise he lived the life of a serf. Americans are the medieval Freeman, save those that are bound to their employer, not legally but by a pay check, which is more or less the same situation as serfs. Everyone needs to eat, and that need is what motivates people to accept their condition, and why Argentinians voted to become the modern equivalent of serfs, and America is on the verge of doing the same, becoming the property, the resource of modern nobility.
In frontier America, freemen, then the majority, had the capacity to provide the necessities of life, food, shelter and clothing without much help. Jefferson spoke for those folks. We had common law rights, like the law of "adverse possession." https://www.legis.state.pa.us/cfdocs/legis/LI/consCheck.cfm?txtType=HTM&ttl=42&div=0&chpt=55&sctn=27&subsctn=1
All land was "common" in the commonwealth colonies, unless granted by the government to a specific person.
IMHO Argentina has no such history. No history of common law. Justinian law. In Argentina, there were six coups d'état during the 20th century: in 1930, 1943, 1955, 1962, 1966 and 1976. The first four established interim dictatorships, while the last two established dictatorships of permanent type on the model of a bureaucratic-authoritarian state.
Adverse possession a common law right, based on allodial rights, enfranchise as legislative in America, also pertains to the state of Israel.
By the way. Americans are no sovereign. My mortgage is paid off, but I hold the land in Fee Simple title, a device of Edward I.
The state of Washington owns my property, but per the device of Fee Simple. I can occupy it, pass it on to heirs, sell it so long as I obey the laws of the State. If I don't the reeve of the shire (sheriff) can dispossess me and take my property for the sovereign state., and receive his cut from the proceeds of the sale.
What a great report Thom. I never heard much about this on our corporate owned news. It sounds right out of the Reagan playbook. Give the rich tax breaks, borrow money, let immigrants in, ship jobs overseas, and if that is not bad enough cause supply line shortages, like what we saw in Southern California during covid, all the ships sitting waiting to get unloaded. Coupled with the oil producers jacking up oil prices anytime they want to cause inflation and then have the Federal reserve raising interest rates like that will stop inflation. In other words, the oligarchs create the crisis (McConnel),and blame the left and get elected because the voters are just to detached from reality to figure out what's going on.
There is an article on raw story that can be accessed on Google. Called, "Donald Trump Jr.: China taking over World reserve currency could be 'good thing' to teach US a 'lesson'" . Still the people who have benefited from a civilized society are ungrateful. Groveling from the he rich and the religious for food will not work out well.
The purpose of government is to keep the masses civilized so the merchants can prosper! The immigrants coming into America are trying to escape capitalist dictatorships already. Maybe this is just part of the big die off plan in order to maintain just young strong healthy slaves, everyone else can perish. What can we expect from the party of liars, I mean life? We must all vote for Biden in order to head off this train wreck and hope we can throw them all in prison, which looks very doubtful.
Good post Bob. By bringing up immigrants, you will touch a nerve with some bleeding hearts, that lack the capability of analytical thinking.
As I pointed out those that are piling up on our border, are conservative Catholics, Evangelicals and Pentecostals,that means patriarchal, misogynistic and homophobic.
In Panama a guy who consorts with drag queens, cross dressers is not called queer, he is a malante (spelling, I have never seen the word printed, only spoken), and is socially acceptable, as he is the top not the bottom, and men can't get pregant, thus the wife is not publicly shamed into divorcing him.
The immigrants at the border are the natural constituency of the Republicans and the Trumpists, and despite the Republican and Trumps policy and disdain of Hispanic immigrants, they do wind up voting for him, especially since the new CEO of Univision is a Trump humper
The immigrants from Islamic countries are by nature of their religion, anti semitic, and a perfect fit for the Republican party, and will either vote for Trump or sit out the election, provided they are naturalized citizens, most are here on student visas, and/or have overstayed their visas.
Argentinians are already suffering from the climate crisis, especially with agriculture and the subsequent prices. Their glaciers are almost gone. Milei is willfully ignorant and a liar---sounds familiar.
The turnout of the election was 76%, despite their mandatory voting. Roughly a fourth sat this one out. Approximately 42% of the population elected this a-hole, and that too sounds familiar. Unfortunately, the other roughly 58% will also suffer the consequences.
A crazy, destructive, climate crisis denier and a host of greedy opportunist people and corporations to help him equals a recipe for further pain. Your driver said it couldn't get any worse; the gentleman you walked with understood the driver's feelings. And there is the real problem, basing votes on feelings instead of logic.
Another horrible man and another horrible experiment, and time for another song about tears and Argentina.
I don't wish to live in a country that this describes, and which we can expect to see if the republicans manage to steal control next election. I hope they'll make suicide drugs available for all who wish to 'opt out.' Who wants to live in a society of desperation, poverty, sickness, disease, and people forced to sell their body parts or prostitute their children? That is what you are describing, and I have no doubt it would become a reality. People in this country frustrate me with their continued ignorance and their refusal to heed to warnings.
Arlene, I'm with you about not wanting to live in a "republican-led" America. But they want a theocratic Christian nation as well, which doesn't allow suicide because it's supposedly a sin. So anyone who does not succeed at it would be arrested and jailed, or worse! They wouldn't be compassionate like Canada is, unfortunately. I hear they don't think much of mental health care either. Wonder why...
Yes, regrettably you are right. It is terrifying. Harken thoughts back to witch trials and the crazies of the puritan times, because - like the dark ages, women will be the biggest victims of their 'vengeance.' and their vile hypocrisy.
What if Trump is abandoned by the billionaires?
Why would they do that, he is their perfect tool.
It's a grotesque irony when the abused become the most vehement supporters of their tormentor's power.
The fascists and the libertarians have leveraged their policies into a massive global wrecking-ball which has demolished society after society and provides the ruin necessary as reason for radical right wing "remedies". Of course they point to the left for a society now in shambles, when in fact the only fault the left is burdened with is the one of not beating the piss out of these policies in the first place. It's like watching someone set fire to a house, and not being able or willing to stop them, you're somehow now the arsonist because the person who actually did do it claims to be a far greater victim of your calling them on it and therefore, in an embarrassing performance of incomprehensible ridicularity, they should be in charge of and profit from any and all efforts to reconstruct the razed building.
And in the world I know, this scenario fools enough of the people, most of the time. It's astounding.
The GOP are certainly experiencing their wettest of daydreams as they lecherously leer at the soon to be forced-disrobing of Argentinian society. Milei's victory is a snuff film for perverts of power the world over.
What doesn't help is most people in the U.S. seem to have no idea that Argentina, Chile, Uruguay and southern Brazil are basically European countries in their overall makeup, urbanization and culture. Walk around Buenos Aires and you could be in Rome or Barcelona. But if "North Americans" (I'm excluding Canadians here) just write off the problems and "solutions" there as though it involved stereotypical Latin Americans living in some sort of Mexican border town, they won't understand what is really happening in Argentina. Then of course they won't have a clue on how such things could reflect on their own way of life.
Probably the ultimate in ignorance here was expressed by Reagan after a trip to Latin America in 1982. When asked about it, his brilliant reply was, "I went down to find out from them and learn their views. You'd be surprised. They're all individual countries."
In Latin America the Europeans, or mestizo's are the middle and ruling class, the "Indians" and Blacks are the peasants,kept in place by preachers, priests, press and police.
It depends on the country, with Bolivia for example moving away from that model. To some extent one's acculturation to the ruling class in language and customs makes a difference over race, as in Mexico. And Uruguay's minorities are a small part of the population, while Argentina has a mixed race population but something like over 90% are full or partial European ancestry so that may mute the issue somewhat. On the other hand I agree that by and large the whiter you are the higher your social class tends to be, something that has been very true for a long time there. A sharp example is the Dominican Republic, where the antipathy to Haitians is so strong that even Dominicans of African descent are at the bottom. Cuba, which naturally claims to have no racism, certainly does have it somewhat along the same lines. Again, this is topic is another example of differences in these countries, something not noticed by many casual visitors. And regarding the priests: Catholicism isn’t as strong as it used to be. Birth rates have dropped a lot in the region and evangelical Protestants are offering more social hope than many in the church, and getting converts too.
On the topic of Cuba, I recommend “Castro, the Blacks, and Africa” by Cuba native Carlos Moore. Much of the ruling party in Cuba is of white European descent, as is Díaz Canel himself. They may have a few Cubans of mixed ethnic ancestry or Afro Cubans in token positions of power, but the people in charge are predominantly of European ancestry. There is also blatant racial discrimination in the tourist trade, where employers express an open preference for employees of European origin and don’t hire people of mixed ethnic ancestry or Afro Cubans. The ads that specify for applicants to be of “good appearance” are hints of this.
If we survive as a democracy in 2024, I’m starting to think that should require a more comprehensive exam covering civics, government, history and economics for a HS degree. I’m just not sure a democracy can survive without a well educated citizenry.
Some school systems have never abandoned this requirement. It got ditched in many cases because of school systems reorienting themselves toward “teaching toward the test.” Schools would abandon topics not covered by standardized testing, which is why you heard about schools abandoning foreign language study and cursive handwriting. When I graduated from high school, I had to take summer school for American government and economics, which were required for me to get my high school diploma.
I’ll play. Or...Argentina realizes very early one not only can and will things get worse under an insane albeit “intelligent” leader, their suffering will be a harbinger for the rest of the world. Here’s another “Mr. Only I Can Fix it” and people are going to die.
It’s not going to go well for the people of Argentina and unfortunately, just like the U.S. in 2016, they’ll have years to contemplate their freedom was not worth losing over a conman and the billionaire backers who manipulated Argentinians into believing they ever needed the “Steve Bannon of the Southern Hemisphere”.
We’ve been aware of our corrupt press and the lies they manufacture on an hourly basis. Trying to flog us into believing TFFG is winning...anything. So far in the real world he’s in deep trouble and it’s not going away.
And just to throw this out there...I don’t fir one second believe it was a free and fair election.
He isn't the first. Before WW I they were probably at a par with the US economically.
Yesterday, I wrote about the Dulles family re Cuba. John Foster Dulles was in the New York law firm Sullivan & Cromwell. His grandfather, John W. Foster, and his uncle, Robert Lansing, both served as United States Secretary of State. He was part of our negotiating team at the Treaty of Versailles, and later posted to Argentina.
Our relations soured when Argentina refused to join the Allies in WWI. Argentina had large British and German populations and both countries had made large-scale investments in Argentina. However, as a prosperous neutral it greatly expanded trade with the United States during the war and exported meat, grain and wool to the Allies particularly to Britain, providing generous loans and becoming a net creditor to the Allied side, a policy known as "benevolent neutrality.
The relationship between Argentina and the United States was ambivalent at best. Argentine public intellectuals frequently argued in the national press that the U.S. represented the greatest threat to Argentina's political and economic ambitions, if not sovereignty. John Dulles represented both the US and his law firm and was pictured in Argentina as the enemy. In fact the family were closely aligned, if now in control of entities like United Fruit, now Chiquita Banana. We were in direct competition for markets for several commodities. Controlled some of their companies.
Thus, we became the enemy. Relations were severely strained in the era of World War II, when Argentina refused to declare war on Nazi Germany, and became the only Latin American nation not to receive American aid. Relations continued to be difficult when the Perons were in power.
Relations were again strained in 1982 after the US supported the United Kingdom against Argentina. We call them the Falklands. They call them the Malvinas.
Since 1998, Argentina has been a major non-NATO ally, partly owing to Argentina's assistance to the United States in the Gulf War.
I wrote above about the military junta.
How do they get the population to go along: "abortion in baby killing." But starving babies isn't baby killing" The appeal to our lower brain which seeks to protect the species sidetracks critical thinking. Manipulate the masses who are striving to survive one day at a time.
Lizard brain, the amygdala Gloria.
Reptiles.
Yep.
To me. it's incredible that entire nations, entire populations are moved by caudillos, Fuhrers, etc. On both ends. The true believer. Eric Hoffer. https://calmatters.org/commentary/2022/02/eric-hoffer-warned-us-about-true-believers/
Horseshoe theory. https://soapboxie.com/us-politics/horseshoe-theory-political-left-and-right
IMHO there is something to Jung's collective racist subconscious theory.
The pope, who is Argentinian, is castigated here by members of his own clergy, i.e. the Council of Bishops,. He recently demoted Bishop Strickland, who holds that view. Maybe he'll intercede.
Mr. Solomon. I have greatly appreciated your comments. They often contain esoteric knowledge which is of help to the rest of us who are uninitiated into legal/historical knowledge of the sort you seem to be steeped in.
However, I cannot go along with your recommendation of Eric Hoffer's TRUE BELIEVER. It is guilty of the logically prohibited mistake of petitio principii, or reasoning in a circle. The book is not just loaded with tautologies; it is itself a drawn out tautology. This is a mistake found in almost all psychological reductionist explanations of human behavior. He locates the source of human behavior within individual human beings. This is a tautology, which gets us no closer to an explanation than saying: "It is what it is because it is what it is." It is a truism to say that something within each of us motivates us to behave. And this gets us nowhere. This is the error shared by all psychological reductionist explanations.
Of course humans have motives to do what they do, including a "true believer." This is a truism, a tautology. The question Hoffer never asks, and therefore never answers is: How do we come to acquire these motives?
I see that in passing, you also mention Carl Jung. He is guilty of the same logical fallacy. But for good measure he throws in lots of unverified assumptions as though they are empirically derived conclusions. I found Jung to be more sophisticated in his constructs than Hoffer, whose elements are simple by comparison. But both are guilty of invalid logical argumentation.
In rejecting a theory, the rejector is not epistemologically required to offer an alternative explanation. However, I am aware of some alternatives, which I humbly recommend: THE PARANOID STYLE IN AMERICAN POLITICS written in the 1960s by Richard Hofstadter. Also STRANGERS IN THEIR OWN LAND by Arlie Russell Hochschild published in 2018. I find STRANGERS....... to be the more insightful of the two. Hofstadter was closer to what I would call a Political Scientist. He did not seem to have been an actual psychological reductionist. But he trod uncomfortably close to that path.
Eric Hoffer, His True Believers opened my eyes, and was were I deconverted from Catholicism.
Karen, you got me to thinking. If Argentina goes to the dollar, then it will have to have a central bank that is a branch of the Federal Reserve.
There are already two, the Bank of Panama and the Bank of Liberia. In 1919 Congress passed the Edge Act https://www.investopedia.com/terms/e/edgeactcorporation.asp#:~:text=An%20Edge%20Act%20Corporation%20is,in%20the%20early%2020th%20century
The act authorizes banks to set up Foreign branches. The Bank of Panama was founded as a subsidary of City Bank. Panamanian currency is the American Dollar,and it's coins are printed in the Philadelphia mint of the same stock, weight, size as American coins, the only difference is the image stamped on the obverse and reverse.
Per international law, Panama is not a sovereign country, and that is why the world did not stand up in protest when GHW Bush, sent his police force (our military) in to arrest the CIA bagman, Noriega.
If Argentina goes to the dollar, what follows will be a depression and a shortage of money.
Panama was a low cost of living country, until in the 1980's Citigroup launched a massive PR campaign to convince people to use credit cards (theirs of course), in short order it became a mass consumer society, and prices sky rocketed. Because the primal cause of inflation is the interest on debts, public and private.
Undeveloped nations, unless they have a commodity in great demand on the global market, have no choice but to print their money, and under pressure they print and print.And to buy exports like wheat, cars, refrigerators and all consumer goods they have to use dollars, and to get dollars they either have to trade, and Argentina's main export is beef, or borrow from the IMF and the IMF exacts a draconian commitment, to cut social services spending, that the investors reap the reward of profit on their investment.
The IMF uses SDR's (Special Drawing Rights) and dollars to issue loans to nations
From my 1984 research
). The SDR is valued at .888671 grams($35 oz). Gold acts as outside (internationa1) money, while credit acts as inside (national) money (p.l29 Monetary Reform and the Price of Gold). The value of the SDR remains stable while all other currencies fluctuate against it in relation to the U.S. DOLLAR.(p.l97, International Trade and Investment, A Managerial Approach,Alex O. Williams, Wiley Interscience Pub,1982, 461 pages). A question to which I don't yet have an answer,"'s the SDR convertible on the outside at market or weighted average par of gold." 151. P. 49 Monetary Reform and the Price of Gold. 152. A parallel example: After the collapse of Germany in 1945, many bureaucracies of the Third Reich, including SS intelligence, continued to function for months and years.
In1984 the SDR was valued at a percentage of member countries currency. A complicated formula. A percentage of the dollar and now a percentage of the Euro and a percentage of the British pound.
Karen, I couldn't help but notice that Milei won't start implementing his new economy until after our 1924 election?
You mean 2024 election Bob, I made the same mistake once.
I mean 2024 election.
Thom, thanks for this astute and terrifying rundown. It occurs to me that Millei's election seems of a piece with all the other international electoral developments funded by Mercer money and informed by Bannon's strategic thinking. Is there any reason to believe that Millei's election may have been bankrolled by that team?
It’s going to be a disaster, and his voters will wind up bitterly regretting it.
Thom, think Mussolini. Corporations, companies, etc. basic to him. He convinced Hitler. People are nothing compared to Corps. & Co. We are doing the same. Capitalism is doing the same. Huge wage gap and we struggle. Try FREEDOM! Do you have the FREEDOM to be homosexual? I could send you a nice clip from West Wing if you want it. Too much to say. Paul
A Plantation Economy complete w/ Proles and Wage-Slaves : Argentina, then, has become a newborn 12th state of what was the,1860, Southern Confederacy . . . Racially exclusive, not unlike a brain in a dropped beaker which has been shattered on the floor of the political laboratory.
A brain trust which is now full of imbedded glass shards, and has become indirectly homicidal to the poor and likely genocidal to the racial/religious other. Think '78-'83: 30,000.
A chainsaw wielding clown. this fringy Bozo is a somewhat entertaining, altogether scary Frankenstein monster in ill-fitting sheep's clothing.
Hey, if one is broke, Jewish, or non-White, what could possibly go wrong ?!! s/
Argentians are going to wake up with a nasty hangover, and they deserve it. The next group of immigrants showing up on our border.. Argentinians?
The IMF is a front for financial instiutions. The IMF's purpose is like a board of governors. They exist to provide the maximum possible rate of return on investments.
They have destroyed the social safety net of what they call P.I.G S countries Portugal, Ireland, Greece and Spain.
And that leads to destabilization, with a battle between left and right, and of course the right wing is fully funded, and the country slides into fascism.
The IMF has used their power to destablize Latin America. The forced Bolivia to sell it's water to Halliburton, it forces African countries to privatize its water. Some villages in Africa and Latin America have a child standing at the village pump collecting 5 cents to fill a jug, those that can't afford it drink from ditches and ponds, then they become infected with parasites and die.
Here is an extract from a paper I wrote for my MBA, written in 1984, it is dated, but shows the power and damage done by the IMF
The problems of the Fed in managing the credit of the US pale in comparison to the pressures exerted on it by competition and "higher headquarters" The rising star in the corporate struggle is the International Monetary Fund (LMF). The special relationship of the IMF to Congress and the Presidency has enabled its director, Jacques De Larosiere, to ingratiate himself with the higher operating mechanism (B.I.S.). The IMF has demonstrated its profound ability to force the U.S. authorities to refund its activities and refinance potentially defaulting loans. 111
The IMF has also demonstrated its muscle by caging Brazil. 112 and decimating that country on behalf of the crown. Forcing the government to act in accordance with guidance from the B.I.S. 113 The voters of Brazil reacted violently to failed efforts evict IMF representatives. 114 . However, the IMF prevailed and Decree 2025 now takes $40 million in wages from Brazilians and living standards are being reduced. When the news of the capitulation of the Brazilian congress to IMF (B.I.S.) demands broke some 60,000 auto workers walked off the job in Sao Paulo.
Peru has been more troublesome. The IMF was dealt a set back when Peruvians rejected the IMF plans to strip the country of its natural resources. 115 They apparently learned their lesson from Chile was foolish enough to be influenced by Friedmans Chicago Boys 116 and on Nov 13, 83 the voters completely rejectedLthe IMF hunger and starvation proposals. Peru has developed a thriving underground (free enterprise) economy which employs 2/3rds of the population. 117 It has also been ravaged by minions of the IMF and BIS, who receive weapons and funds to wage a guerilla war under the banner of the Shining Path. If this “Marxist” campaign should win, then Peru will fall into line.
In Columbia the IMF has been successful in thwarting the Columbian government crusade against cocaine and marijuana. In a veiled reference Zeue Zuricher Zeitung editorialized that "Columbia could resort to unlicensed exports of the most diversified types(cocaine and marijuana), it went on to say that "should the governments moralizing campaign result in this area also declining Columbia could find itself, even with imports reduced no longer in a position to obtain foreign exhange required to maintain its economy. 118
Argentina must be chalked up as a success. Tremendous infusions of money and the threat of foreclosure, aided by recent naval manuevers in the Carribean, have enabled the Radical Civic Union (leftist) party togain control of Argentina. The Minister of Economy, Grinspun. 119 Is now
in charge of the nations finance and the military leadership is being hauled before a Neuremburglike" courts martial120Their elimination will insure that there is no repeat of the Chilean experience. 121
That Argentia can be considered secured is evidenced by the return of the "leftist", Jacobo Timmerman. 122 and reclamation of his newspaper l23. Paul Prebisch 124 has been taken into President Alfonsins cabinet and can be expected to act accordingly.
Chile, as noted previously, is in a delayed holding action thanks to Milton Friedman's country denuding Industrial base destroying influence. 125 The influence of the IMF in forcing revolution causing austerity measures an Chile is well documented in the Wall Street Journal Index .126
Bolivian capitualation was gained earlier this year when the withholding of hard currency caused the economic conditions and violence that enabled a "leftist" government to assume power. In a package deal to secure IMF re‑funding the new regime extradicted (in violation of its own laws), alleged war criminal Klaus Altmann to France. 127 Subsequent food riots, as a result of President Siles Zuaszo's capitulation to IMF demands 128 on Nov 17, 83 have threatened this "democratic" government
President Reagan’s bid to cut funding to the International Development Association (IDA) a World Bank Affiliate that makes no interest loans to poorer countries was much heralded by fiscal conservatives, but had the effect of holding back narcotics from a drug addict. This move forces LDC's to go to IMF and the IMF in turn forces "social & political change" in return for another dose of debt narcotic. In the modern world LDC's can not exist without "hard currency." (dollars or SDR's). The only source of these funds are international financial mechanisms. 129
The IMF is also forcing radical changes on Marcos in the Philipinnes, again selective interpretation of the news has generated a climate favorable to De Larosiere's goals. 130
So I asked the question above. Euro dollars? Petrodollars? Argentinodollars?
Will they affect the value of our currency?
So today, for the second time this month a "giant of the crypto world has been felled by federal charges. Zhao, who appeared Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Seattle, faces as much as 18 months in prison for violating for he Bank Secrecy Act, according to sentencing guidelines. He will be fined $50 million and is barred from working with the exchange for three years, court filings show."
Crypto is really just another form of alchemy. Lead into gold? Money for nothing ...and the chicks for free.
When the dollar replaces the local currency is there an affect here? After Mexico when the peso was devalued in 1982, there were discussions that the dollar could replace all other currency. Even in Cuba, the dollar was the de facto currency, even when it had been criminalized.
Critics in the developing world are especially uneasy about America's willingness to use the dollar's global influence to impose financial sanctions against adversaries — as it did to Russia after the invasion of Ukraine last year. They also complain that fluctuations in the dollar can destabilize their economies.
The Fed is aware of the competition. https://www.federalreserve.gov/econres/notes/feds-notes/the-international-role-of-the-us-dollar-post-covid-edition-20230623.html
Argentinians moving to America was my first thought also. I think there are some argentinians already here. We better get to Canada while the gittens good or mary a Chinese woman and move to China? If China doesn't get a handle on its billionaires, it will suffer the same fate as America and all other unlimited greed capitalist countries.
Eurodollars, petrodollars, Argentine dollars are still dollars. The source if the Federal Reserves fractional reserve system. They don't affect the value of the dollar, unless they were created out of debt via the fractional reserve system. And the U.S. Budget has money in it for buying oil from foreign nations, which we don't need to do for our own sovereignty, we export more oil than we consume, and would be independent of foreign oil, were not for Exxon Mobil, BP, Shell all need to export oil and gasoline for profit.
They export, for profit, so much that we then have to import oil, which benefits them as well. International trade is what makes billionaires, not just ripping off consumers.
Why do administrations court China, and under developed countries? They are trade representatives for those that own this country.
The initial impact of Argentina going to the dollar, will be a shortage of money, and that means a depression., unless the IMF, ships in pallet loads of money as it did in Afghanistan.
Since money is a created by debt (public and private), the flow of dollars will be slow, and
Argentina will have to rely on exports to get dollars or IMF drawing rights, more inflation.
I doubt it produces enough exports (I am not up on it's Milton Friedman competitive advantage), so it will have to borrow, unless Citicorp can, and it will repeat its success with Panama and convince people to use credit cards and go in debt, and that too will lead to inflation, as the primal cause of inflation is the interest on debts (public and private)
To go to the dollar, the Bank of Argentina must be rechartered as a Central Bank, ans an off shore subsidiary of a member of the Federal Reserve, per the 1919 Edge act, which effectively created the Bank of Panama and the Bank of Liberia Most likely Citicorp as it has experience in creating off shore national banks.
I have to report that many speculators made their fortunes divining the vigorish between the respective value of dollars in Geneva, Riyadh and Nueva York.
https://www.cnbc.com/currencies/