I was talking to my brother about some family stuff a few weeks ago, and somehow this blog came up. He mentioned that he had a favorite quote of mine, which came from something I scratched down about how an "occupy" mob had 'seized a house' in Brooklyn with the intention of refurbishing it, only to leave it ruined and worthless. The line was this:
"The reason the world doesn't already work the way that liberals wish it would, is that the world doesn't work the way that liberals wish it would."
That's really all I should have to tell anyone about this situation.
My career on Wall Street started on the JPMorgan commodity derivatives desk where Argentina was one of our clients. In the process of working with them, I got a window into the yin and yang of Latin American politics.
While there is a little variation based on personalities etc, as a rule countries like Argentina tend to vacillate from thieving ex-miltary right wingers with secret bank accounts packed full of nationalized oil revenues (you know... for a rainy day), to idealistic but completely incompetent college professors who try to wish reality into something new, while they struggle mightily to find their own A-holes with two hands and a map.
Clearly the situation hasn't changed in Argentina in the last 20 years. And I'm more than a little disturbed at how similar that story is to our own current political outlook.
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Argentina:
A country rich in resources (everything from agriculture to oil), with a large educated populace, strong historical ties to Europe (access to talent and capital), and access to the sea (trade)....
In the 1920's, Argentina had a higher per capita GDP than the United States. It was a rich country.
Now it is broke and descending back into tyranny.
Are we next?
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