Posted on 12/31/2001 3:22:29 AM PST by KQQL
BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (Reuters) - Argentina reeled on Monday from the second resignation of a president in just over a week, as bitterly divided politicians clashed over who would next lead a country plagued by riots and recession.
After violent street protests and a battle within the ruling Peronist Party led Adolfo Rodriguez Saa to suddenly quit as interim president on Sunday, depressed Argentina found itself adrift with no consensus over how to end the chaos.
Eduardo Camano, head of the lower house of Congress, found himself with the hot potato of Argentina's provisional presidency after the Senate chief also resigned. But Camano can only head the country for 48 hours before Congress must name a new interim president, according to the Constitution.
He said a legislative assembly of both houses of Congress was being called for Tuesday at 2 p.m., to choose a new interim leader either until new elections within 90 days or until the next scheduled elections in 2003.
One powerful Peronist governor called for an emergency "government of national salvation," while another urged elections for a new president "as soon as possible."
But the non-stop political tumult raised questions about whether Argentina is governable at all as the crumbling middle class grows increasingly restless in its protests of widespread corruption and a ruthless recession now in its fourth year.
Rodriguez Saa, appointed just a week ago by Congress to lead until elections set for March 3, quit after stomping on the toes of Peronist Party barons who accused him of trying to delay or cancel the vote to cling to power longer.
His fate was also sealed by thousands of demonstrators who took to the streets on Friday night to protest strict curbs on bank deposits and his appointment of a cabinet many believed was rife with corruption.
The protests turned ugly, leaving a dozen police injured after clashes in front of the presidential palace. Looters also broke down the doors of Congress, set small fires and pushed couches and statues down its front steps.
"I'm not going to be the president who continues the old Argentina," Rodriguez Saa said in a televised address to the nation on Sunday. "This selfish, petty attitude leaves me no alternative but to present my resignation."
CAROUSEL OF PRESIDENTS
Television images showed a very small group of protesters gathering outside the presidential palace early on Monday, but they appeared to be easily outnumbered by police in riot gear and expectant news photographers.
In his short term in office, Rodriguez Saa stopped payments on Argentina's foreign debt, setting up what would be the biggest sovereign default ever and consolidating Latin America's third-largest economy as a pariah in world markets.
Rodriguez Saa was Argentina's third president this year. Violent protests that killed 27 people forced Fernando de la Rua to resign as president on Dec. 20 only half way through his four-year term.
"What people want more than anything is a government," said presidential hopeful Carlos Ruckauf, governor of Buenos Aires province, the country's richest and most populous. "Argentina immediately needs a government of national salvation."
Peronist powerbrokers said Rodriguez Saa's plans for a new currency and promises to create a million jobs sounded too ambitious for a man only slated to stay in power for three months.
Right before Rodriguez Saa took office, one Peronist spokesman had described him as a "guy without many enemies in the party." But that label soon vanished, and key party leaders skipped an emergency meeting he called for Sunday afternoon.
Rodriguez Saa said as he quit that the snub by the Peronist governors was the last straw for his caretaker government.
"He never consulted us on any measures that he took," said Jose Manuel de la Sota, another Peronist governor with presidential aspirations. "The people should elect their president, and the sooner the better."
WHAT TO DO WITH CURRENCY PEG?
Argentina's next leader must decide what to do with the dollar-peso currency peg, which economists say is on the brink of collapse. Help from foreign governments is not expected since most believe Argentina's problems will deal no more than just a glancing blow to the world economy.
Still, worries over Argentina were cited for sluggish stock trade in Britain early on Monday. In emerging markets like South Africa, however, traders played down fears of a contagion like the ones sparked last decade by Mexico or Russia.
In his first public comments since resigning, De la Rua issued a brief statement calling for "national unity."
In a front-page editorial on Monday entitled "Seriousness and grace are needed," La Nacion newspaper political analyst Joaquin Morales Sola wrote that "the opportunism of the Peronists made it possible for Argentina to continue spiraling into the abyss."
Many demonstrators over the weekend said they were worried that Rodriguez Saa's plan to alleviate a cash crunch by issuing a new third currency could spark runaway hyperinflation.
Many of those who took to the street early on Saturday demanded the end of unpopular caps limiting Argentines to $1,000 in cash per month from their bank accounts, put in place a month ago to halt a run on the brittle financial system.
But economists say lifting the cash limits would spark certain collapse of many Argentine banks short on funds.
Somebody ought to dig up Henry Hazlett's essay about the chaos in Montevideo during the 1960s. Will offer insight into this latest situation.
Even a military coup won't help. They are proven losers too.
I nominate madeline albright...
I didnt know they had videos in the 60s?
Hot, tango dancing women.
Well...no. You seem to be confusing representative government with the "fuerher principle".
Under our system, the people elect representatives who swear to protect the Constitution, like this:
I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of _______________ and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States
Nowhere in the U.S. Constitution does it say that our representatives are to "lead", and the people are to "follow".
In the U.S., the people follow the law, not their leaders. I'm not trying to be peevish, but surely you can see the difference between a Constitutional Republic and a bannana republic.
The silver?
This e-text of the posthumous 1993 collection of essays, "The Wisdom of Henry Hazlitt," is made available by The Henry Hazlitt Foundation in cooperation with The Foundation for Economic Education. The Hazlitt Foundation is a member-supported 501(c)(3) non-profit corporation whose mission is to make the ideas of freedom more accessible. Please visit our flagship Internet service Free-Market.Net: The world's most comprehensive source for information on liberty. | |
Chapter 30: Uruguay: Welfare State Gone Wild--From the April 1969 issue of The Freeman.
If there were a Nobel prize for the most extreme or worst example of the welfare state (and if such outright communist states as Russia and China were made ineligible), which country has done most to earn it? The decision would be a hard one. Among the outstanding candidates would be Britain, France, Sweden, and India. But the British case, though the most familiar, is certainly not the worst; it is the most discussed and most deplored because of the former eminence of Britain in the world. The tragedy certainly reaches its greatest dimensions in India, with much of its 500 million population always on the verge of famine, and kept there by an incredible mixture of economic controls, planning, welfarism, and socialism, imposed by its central and state governments. Moreover, India has always been a poverty-stricken country, periodically swept by drought or floods resulting in human misery on a catastrophic scale, and it is often difficult to calculate just how much worse off its governmental policies have made it. Perhaps the most dramatic example of a country needlessly ruined by "welfare" policies is Uruguay. Here is a country only about a third larger than the state of Wisconsin, with a population of just under 3 million. Yet that population is predominantly of European origin, with a literacy rate estimated at 90 percent. This country once was distinguished among the nations of Latin America for its high living standards and good management. Uruguay adopted an elaborate state pension system as early as 1919. But its major troubles seem to have begun after March 1952, when the office of president was abolished, and Uruguay was governed by a nine-man national council elected for a four-year term, six members of which belonged to the majority party and three to the leading minority party. All nine were given equal power. What is so discouraging about the example of Uruguay is not only that its welfare programs persisted, but that they became more extreme in spite of the successive disasters to which they led. The story seems so incredible that instead of telling it in my own words, I prefer to present it as a series of snapshots taken by different firsthand observers at intervals over the years. * * * The first snapshot I present is one taken by Karel Norsky in The Manchester Guardian Weekly of July 12, 1956:
I should like to pause here to underline this last paragraph, for it illustrates what is perhaps the most ominous aspect of the welfare state everywhere. This is that once a subsidy, pension, or benefit payment is extended to any group, it is immediately regarded as a "right." No matter what the crisis facing the budget or the currency, it becomes "politically impossible" to discontinue or reduce it. We will find this repeatedly illustrated in Uruguay. * * * The next snapshot I present was taken by S. J. Rundt & Associates of New York nearly seven years later, in April, 1963:
* * * Our third snapshot was taken by Sterling G. Slappey in Nation's Business magazine four years later, in April, 1967:
* * * The return to a Presidential system brought hopes that Uruguay's extreme welfarism could now be mitigated. But here is our fourth snapshot, taken by C. L. Sulzberger for The New York Times of October 11, 1967:
* * * Our fifth snapshot was taken by S. J. Rundt & Associates on August 6, 1968:
* * * Our sixth and final snapshot of a continuing crisis is from a New York Times dispatch of January 21, 1969:
* * * These six snapshots, taken at different intervals over a period of twelve years, involve considerable repetition: but the repetition is part of the point. The obvious reforms were never made. Here are a few salient statistics to show what was happening between the snapshots: In 1965 consumer prices increased 88 percent over those in the preceding year. In 1966 they increased 49 percent over 1965. In 1967 they increased 136 percent over 1966. By August, 1968 they had increased 61 percent over 1967. The average annual commercial rate of interest was 36 percent in 1965. In 1966, 1967, and August 1968 it ranged between 32 and 50 percent. The volume of money increased from 2,924 million pesos in 1961 to 10,509 in 1965, 13,458 in 1966, and 27,490 in 1967. In 1961 there were 11 pesos to the American dollar. In 1965 there were 60; in 1966, there were 70; in early 1967 there were 86; at the end of 1967 there were 200, and after April 1968 there were 250. Uruguay's warning to the United States, and to the world, is that governmental welfarism, with its ever-increasing army of pensioners and other beneficiaries, is fatally easy to launch and fatally easy to extend, but almost impossible to bring to a halt -- and quite impossible politically to reverse, no matter how obvious and catastrophic its consequences become. It leads to runaway inflation, to state bankruptcy, to political disorder and disintegration, and finally to suppressive dictatorship. Yet no country ever seems to learn from the example of another.
© 19XX. For permissions information, contact The Foundation for Economic Education, 30 South Broadway, Irvington-on-Hudson, NY 10533.
401 N. Franklin St., Suite 3E, Chicago, IL 60610 (312) 494-9433, fax: (312) 494-9441 info@hazlitt.org, http://www.hazlitt.org/
|
Happy New Year!
"a collegiate system of government"
...is not a democratic-republic
...is "inclusive" of only its think-state
... and is the practice of hiding from responsibility and accountability, by hiding behind the others of the system
...is a soviet and ruling class.
I believe that we have now reached the point where Lord Tytler's admonition is near at hand:
"A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves money from the public treasure. From that moment on the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most money from the public treasury, with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world's great civilizations has been two hundred years. These nations have progressed through the following sequence: from bondage to spiritual faith, from spiritual faith to great courage, from courage to liberty, from liberty to abundance, from abundance to selfishness, from selfishness to complacency from complacency to apathy, from apathy to dependency, from dependency back to bondage."
--Lord Alexander Tytler on the fall of the Athenian republic
And the comments of a more recent individualist:
When you see that trading is done, not by consent, but by compulsion
When you see that in order to produce, you need permission from men who produce nothing
When you see that money is flowing to those who deal, not in goods, but in favors
When you see that men get richer by graft and pull than by hard work, and your laws don't protect you against them, but protect them against you
When you see corruption being rewarded and honesty becoming self-sacrifice
You may know your society is doomed.
Atlas Shrugged
--Ayn Rand
Excellent observations.
Yet I think we are not doomed, because we are curious to know how things work.
Though we find plenty of inattention to maintenance, there are still plenty of people who make things happen, every day.
I still roughly estimate that one third of the people will bitch and moan, one third of the people will sit on the fence ... but come down off it to help, the enduring third of the people.
The trick is in maintaining a public education for the purposes in which the expression was intended by our founding fathers; and that is, to not waste the benefits of failure analysis of our [and their] ancestors' struggles.
True, we (the U.S.) may not last, but overall, we have not exactly returned to the bronze age (though I can hear from y'all, the temptation to get witty, here), upon our failures since the Greek democracies.
We have learned some things for which we would write a slightly better Constitution, wise to how the lawyers, et al, I am sorry to say, would work their way around the principle that government be limited by enumeration of its powers.
We could have a few better phrases, perhaps more firm.
But especially, we could have a better example of our exercising a "free press" for its prime objective, to protect the people from bad, excessive, intrusive, etc., government.
I had by most standards, a very high-quality high school education. But neither there, nor in college, were the principles of constitutional construction illuminated beyond the pop-favorites of whatever few features in The Federalist Papers, which the prof. happened to want ALL the Constitution to "mean." Such prof.'s and departments were all dead set on establish THEIR version of [re-]"interpreting" the Constitution --- and certainly not the Founding Fathers'.
In the same instant, we live in a world of great imagination, and then none at all.
We have been taught that we must have guns OR butter; but examination of the argument shows that we must BALANCE guns AND butter.
We have been taught that many things social, do not work, without government force. And there, is where we really are at odds with "the left."
Because we are told, by them, that we cannot affect improvement in general, for we are hindered by our Constitution; and instead, the "Contemporary Constitution" according to them --- which is more accurately extra-Constitutional space where we find most of socialism and them --- is the place to "move forward."
In the fix of the lights of our modern media processes, who may oppose "the left's" arguments, spends almost no time doing anything but reacting to positions of the left, in hopes of maintaining some dialog.
Ironic it is, that actually it is "the right" which seeks to maintain some closeness and understanding of "the left's" position, though disingenuous "the left" most certainly is.
Yet we have hardly exhausted any of the tools with which we can demonstrate how we can accomplish great things while limiting government.
One example, we have lived through: We went for generations, without our individual right to keep and bear Arms being a day-to-day target on the wish-list of socialists' engineering a decline of the democratic-republic. That is because, for the most part, generation to generation, we imparted the serious nature of our responsibilities as citizens. Joanie, I believe, knows this very well, and probably can recall many of the particulars of care and instruction by which her late father imparted to her, not only his expectations, but our ancestors.
I have seen racing crews pack up and go home, thinking that we pretty much know what we're going to know. And the next time, somebody shows up a the track with something new. Or so it seems.
Because what they have looks new, but is actually a better application of an old principle.
Which gets me back to maintenance.
We advance because we have learned that there is, maintenance.
It gets almost no "play" and often is not glamorous. But it does keep things running, and it is conservativism.
Liberals may go on re-inventing the wheel, but it is conservatives who will maintain it, refurbish it, or make a new one ... on the principle.
I would say that our Constitution lives because our culture of Liberty lives on through the continuation of our American Heritage and worthy tradition.
Find a liberal who fancies his/or/her/or/it-self in lockstep with Lenin and denegratingly critical of our American Heritage. Almost always, you'll also find they fancy themself to be a conniseur (sp?) of cultural understanding and tradition ELSEWHERE around the world; and so, the fact is, they DO APPRECIATE tradition. Rather, it is against America, that they work, and for socialism, to relieve them of some angst under their saddle. Their inability to be honest about their true political intent, matching their inability to really explain that angst.
And probably, the thought of doing chores --- maintaining the foundations of Liberty --- quite scares them, as just more day-to-day labor "for somebody elses' benefit."
But what I see are a people who would be unhappy, because the discipline required to face the struggles of day-to-day life, even in a free country, is something --- IN THEIR EDUCATION --- which they missed, dismissed, and in some cases will refuse opportunity, no matter.
Because socialism is not about fixing anything; rather, it is about all of us being perpetually in need, but especially of the socialist ruling class [of the moment, whoever of them is alive at that moment, in their wars against each other].
Well, nearly always down some corridor, of even the darkest hall of socialism's power, there's some guy or gal who actually does know how to change a light bulb and has quite some experience with what is and what is not a good light bulb. And that guy or gal, is who makes things work.
And pretty soon, word gets out, and more people fix what needs fixing ...
Which is what allows us to truly move forward.Well, who flocks around the world, to socialism? Does Russia have people sneaking in to be free? Or does Red China? Or does Cuba? Where are all their millions of illegal immigrants?
So what is so great about America?
We make things work because we are free to make things work; while socialism is about limiting peoples' freedom to make things work.
And for all the promises of the upper-muckety-mucks on "the left," people prefer that things work.
To wit: socialism "wins" when it manages to convince people that nothing works and there's no use in trying [anything but socialism].
Well, sorry, but that's utterly the opposite of the American Spirit of '76, which is the nature of an American and those who very much wish to be.
I must confess that my statement, "We only have the rights we defend as long as we are able," is not merely a bit of wisdom. Again, I understate and am perfectly comfortable with it.
God Bless you all in the new year.
This could be our fate.
Learn to prevent it.
If you want Tina, you better have silver! ;-)
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.