metalman said:
In the 1940?s there was a young, charismatic politician offering Argentina hope and change. His name was Juan Peron and his Ideology was called Peronism or Justicialism e.g. "Social Justice." Argentina was once considered a 1st world country, having then the fourth-highest per capita income in the world. Now ..... after 8 decades of "Social Justice" #43 @$6576 per person
Peron was, after his first term, repeatedly popularly elected. He was liked by the majority but despised by the land owning elite. He died in 1976 after which a military coup took over the country and killed tens of thousands of people. From 1976 to 1983 Argentina was under (US approved according to NSA docs declassified in 2003) military dictatorship.
Under this dictatorship the country took on huge debts (if you read "Confessions of an Economic Hitman you will know how this works), the state took over large private debts (if you've been watching Wall St then you know how THIS works), and, of course, they had a war which they lost to Britain.
The junta brought in "neoliberal" reforms just like the US has been getting when the planners were finally able to re-import them. By the end of the military junta the country had high unemployment, had lost a lot of its industrial base and was pretty much broke. After that time the neoliberals brought the policy home to the US where it has proceeded to do pretty much the same to the US as it did to Argentina.
The first democracy after the junta tried to get out from under this by introducing an new currency but it didn't take and inflated away. After a second failed currency the Argentinians pegged to the dollar and stocked up on reserves. Money continued to flow out of Argentina and by the end of the 1990's the wealthy jumped ship and the peg collapsed.
The bottom came in 2002 after 26 years of neoliberalism, not social justice. After the collapse the government focused on making credit available to businesses, set aside a chunk of money for social services and got serious about tax collection.
Growth has been 8% to 9% per year since then. In 2002 almost 60% of Argentinians lived under the poverty line. That figure is now about 15%.
(There are indications that some of the Wall St players that took down the US also played a part in siphoning off the wealth of the Argentinians but that may be decided in future court cases).
