Fausta's Blog

American and Latin American Politics, Society, and Culture

Archives for January 2016

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Sunday palate cleanser: Tous Les Matins Du Monde

The film that started me on my Baroque and Early Music decades-long obsession,

and my idea of heavenly music, Jordi Savall (who actually played the music you hear in the film’s soundtrack) performing the Spanish Variations on viola de gamba,

Savall has re-introduced the Early Music repertoire to modern audiences as his fellow Iberians Pablo Casals and Andres Segovia did with cello and classical guitar in the 20th century.

The heartbreak of the film’s plot matches the real-life tragic life of Guillaume Depardieu; however, the beautifully executed music makes it worthwhile.

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Broke in the Bahamas: Baha Mar, the Swiss guy and the Chinese

Baha Mar: The hotel that threatens to bankrupt the Bahamas. The Baha Mar resort was supposed to add 12 per cent to the Caribbean island’s GDP. But it has turned into the world’s biggest white elephant and the investors have gone to war. The case will soon hit the London courts. Michael Bow reports
Read the sad tale of too big a project, not enough funds, but this jumps out (emphasis added)

Mr Izmirlian, the son of commodity tycoon Dikran Izmirlian, who made his money cornering the global peanut market, was asked to try and revitalise the rundown area of Cable Beach, a dilapidated area of the island long overlooked in favour of other boltholes.

He bought land around Cable Beach and signed a deal with a US construction group in 2007 to develop the site. He securedfinancing for the project but the onset of the global financial crisis scuppered the plans.

But in March 2009 Mr Izmirlian got a break, thanks to the Chinese.

CSCEC, through its US arm CCA, agreed to come on board and construct the resort with the proviso that debt financing came from Cexim, which stumped up $2.45bn of secured credit.

CCA, led by president and chief executive Ning Yuan, is the largest division of CSCEC and has been operating in the US for 30 years. CSCEC added another $150m and Mr Izmirlian $850m.

The Chinese company was given the green light to start building in February 2011, with a completion scheduled in November 2014.

Despite the company’s size, the Baha Mar president Tom Dunlap said it had concerns about whether the Chinese could deliver such an ambitious construction project. CSCEC drafted around 5,000 migrant Chinese labourers on to the holiday island to build the resort, winning work permits for them from the Bahamian government.

“Although [CSCEC] is one of the world’s largest contractors, it had little experience in constructing single-phase resorts projects of [the] size and complexity of the [Baha Mar] project,” Mr Dunlap said in a statement filed as part of the bankruptcy proceedings.

Keep that in mind every time you read about the proposed Nicaragua Canal.

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The Council Has Spoken!! Our Watcher’s Council Results

At the Watchers’ Council,

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-fjmYWFGjRLQ/VBZKcuHxAUI/AAAAAAAAi1w/5WIOcOHaH2s/s1600/confederacy.png

The Council has spoken, the votes have been cast, and the results are in for this week’s Watcher’s Council match up.

“I believe there are more instances of the abridgment of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations.” – President James Madison

“A republic, if you can keep it” – Benjamin Franklin

“Man’s capacity for justice makes democracy possible, but man’s inclination to injustice makes democracy necessary.” – Reinhold Neibuhr

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-1ndmEdQX3AM/Tv04FWJ3kTI/AAAAAAAAAzg/P-WNaJRST6Q/s400/Bookworm%2B3.jpg

This week we had tie in the Council category between Bookworm Room’s The single most important election issue in 2016: The Constitution!
and Joshuapundit’s –The Clinton E-Mail Scandal And How It Will End .

As Watcher, I get paid the big bucks to break ties like this.

My piece detailed exactly how Mrs. Clinton broke the law, endangered national security and discussed where the current FBI investigation is as well as my prediction for how this all will end, which may startle some people!

Andrea’s articulate and well written article explored in great detail her belief that the real issue in the coming election is strengthening our Constitution. Not only did I vote for it myself, but she definitely wins the honors this week as far as I’m concerned! Here’s a slice:

“I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.”
— Presidential Oath of Office

In 1992, James Carville famously hung a sign in Bill Clinton’s Little Rock campaign headquarters pointing campaign workers to Clinton’s most powerful campaign message: “The economy, stupid!” Today, in the run-up to the 2016 election, conservatives need to keep hammering their most powerful campaign message: “The Constitution!” After eight years of Obama’s savage disregard for the Constitution, the 2016 election is America’s last chance to return our Constitution to its rightful, and central, place in American politics.

In this essay, I hope to establish three things:

I. That the Constitution is a unique document that empowers individuals over government, making it the bedrock of American exceptionalism;

II. That Barack Obama has significantly damaged the Constitution’s preeminent position in American government, creating a dangerous imbalance in favor of an unlimited executive backed by a powerful, all-encompassing bureaucracy; and

III. That we must choose our next president very carefully in order to redress this imbalance lest we wake up one morning to find ourselves living under a permanent de facto dictatorship.

Part I

After winning the Revolution, America’s Founding Fathers had the unique opportunity to build a government from the ground up. Being educated men, they had several models from which to choose. They could replicate the British model, with its monarch, hereditary aristocracy, and House of Commons. They could attempt a commune of the type that the Pilgrims tried in 1620. Although that attempt almost killed the Pilgrims, the utopian impulse towards communism has continued to tempt revolutionaries ever since. They could try to put Plato’s Republic into effect and appoint themselves as the ideal Platonic ruling elite. They could even try the Judges approach from the Old Testament. They rejected all of those models.
[Read more…]

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Bolivia: Alleged fraud in 2014 elections

Bolivia Nueva (link in Spanish) reports on a new study that shows egregious voter fraud in the 2014 general election.

Tens of thousands of votes were cast exceeding the number of registered voters (my translation),

In districts 6, 7, 8 y 9 of La Paz, the Supreme Court registered 513,884 voters. However, 556,799 voted. That is, there were 42,915 votes too many.

Similar results were shown in El Alto, Chuquisaca, and Cochabamba, among others.

Bolivia Nueva calls for an audit of the entire electoral system.

As you may recall, Evo Morales was re-elected in 2014 for a third term which ends in 2014. Morales has already asked to end term limits so he can run for a fourth term in 2019. The coca growers want him to remain as president until 2035.



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Venezuela: Last in human rights

Simon Wilson reports,
Venezuelan government’s abuses are laid bare in new Human Rights Watch report

It will not come as too much of a surprise however that, out of all the governments in the region, it is the Venezuelan government that has been subject to HRW’s strongest criticisms. The American NGO cites accumulation of power under the executive and a lack of judicial independence as factors contributing to a serious erosion of human rights and a culture of state impunity running rife in the country.

Leopoldo Lopez is not the only one persecuted,

Worryingly however, it is not just high profile political leaders who are subject to the scrutiny of the authorities. The report highlights just how much the National Bolivarian Intelligence Service (SEBIN) has become an ominous presence in the life of any Venezuelan who dares criticize the government publicly. Cases cited include the detention of a doctor for criticizing medicine shortages on television and an engineer who was quoted in a newspaper criticizing government energy policies.

Wilson points out that

44 percent of the nation’s operating rooms were reported as non functional and 94 percent of labs lacked the necessary materials to perform operations.

Medical supplies and prescription drugs are in such short supply that by now Not Even Social Media Can Find Medicine in Venezuela

Across Venezuela, the shelves of both private and state-run pharmacies remain mostly empty.

Besides the lack of basic foods, shortages in Venezuela have critically affected health-care products as well. Approximately 70 percent of essential medicines, and 80 percent of medication for chronic diseases, are disappearing from store shelves, putting millions at risk, according to the NGO Codevida.

This is why Venezuelans take to social media, especially Twitter, to see if a charitable soul either has or knows someone who sells a particular medicine. However, even this desperate strategy is no longer working.

Health minister Luisiana Melo claims that

the shortage was due to Venezuelans “irrationally consuming medication.”

Melo also blames the toothpaste shortage on the insistence evil-minded dentists and savage capitalism that people brush three times daily, “when once is more than enough.”

All the above goods are heavily regulated by the government.

Miguel Octavio found one place where you can pay a premium for goods that are not regulated by the government:

The market has changed, not only because it moved next door to a more modern building while Leopoldo Lopez was Mayor in 2008, but also because its nature has changed. What originally was created in the 40’s to have farmers from the surrounding areas bring fresh produce to sell directly, has now become a place to find what you can not find elsewhere. At premium prices, of course. But it does retain some of the original flavor, as produce remains its strength and since most produce is not regulated you can still find lots of good stuff there. (By the way, the webpage of the market ignores its previous history, only talking of the market from 2006 on, which is truly a pity)

The market has changed so much, that twenty years ago, I would go Sunday mornings because it was mostly empty (It opens from Thursdays to Sunday), but you would not necessarily find everything, most of the stuff had been sold. Today, Sunday are as bustling as any other day and what you can not get is likely due to its scarcity. The market has become so popular to look for scarce items, that even at noon on Sunday its still full.

In brief, the more the government controls, the less free its people are.

Related (via NV),
Matt O’Brien: Venezuela is on the brink of a complete economic collapse

UPDATE
Linked to by the Daily Gator. Thank you!

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Greek lessons for Puerto Rico

Columbia University professor Andrés Velasco, a former presidential candidate and finance minister of Chile, writes an important article on the lessons Puerto Rico can learn from Chile. Here are a couple of paragraphs, but you must read the article in full,

Puerto Rico and its leaders can learn three important lessons from Greece. First, it is no use pretending that debt reduction can be avoided. And when the time comes, action must be sufficiently bold to do away with the debt overhang and encourage private investment.
. . .
The second lesson is that policymakers must put fiscal policy on a sustainable path, while recognizing that austerity alone is not the answer. Puerto Rico’s economy had been shrinking before the fiscal crisis, and the spending cuts and tax increases since it erupted have only made matters worse. The island risks sharing Greece’s fate, with the debt-to-GDP ratio continuing to rise as austerity deepens the recession.
. . .
The third lesson from Greece is that macro tinkering is not enough; highly indebted countries also need a credible growth strategy. Puerto Rico is no exception.

For a long time, the island’s economy grew on the basis of corporate tax incentives. But, beginning in 1996, the US Congress did away with those tax breaks, without producing any blueprint for development. On the contrary, Puerto Rico is stuck with an early-twentieth-century law that forces all trade with the mainland to be conducted with expensive US ships, increasing transport costs and undermining economic competitiveness.

All that must change. Puerto Rico will not pay its debts – not even what is left after debt reduction – unless its economy grows. US creditors and lawmakers must accept that reality, and act accordingly.

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Last night’s podcast

Silvio Canto hosted, Jason Poblete dropped by and talked how Lawlessness on U.S.-Cuba Policy, the New Normal



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