strategic bombing
 

you don't think torture can provide benefits? Have you seen this?
http://images.amazon.com/images/P/63...1.LZZZZZZZ.jpg

I think I am going to check this out. The guy has an interesting thesis:

The failure of Latin America's reforms of the 1990s has led to a backlash that has brought leftist governments to power in a growing number of countries in the region. But because today's would-be reformers share the same misunderstandings as yesterday's reformers, their policies risk keeping millions of Latin Americans in poverty even longer.

The policies of the 1990s failed not because they were "too much, too soon," but because they did not challenge fundamentally the institutional framework that has kept the region shackled for so long. For example, although many countries curbed inflation, they imposed regressive taxes on the poor; they replaced state monopolies with government-sanctioned private monopolies; and they failed to make their judicial systems independent of political influence.

Thus, as celebrated Latin American writer/journalist and Independent Institute Senior Fellow Alvaro Vargas Llosa wrote recently in THE NEW YORK TIMES: "Unless Latin America's leftist governments are willing to deepen reform, the continent is unlikely to break free of its recurring cycle of economic stagnation and political disillusionment."

To shed light on the causes of, and cures for, Latin America'a chronic malaise, the Independent Institute is pleased to host Alvaro Vargas Llosa on "Liberty for Latin America: How to Undo 500 Years of State Oppression," based on his new book of the same title. http://www.independent.org/events/de...sp?eventID=109

This very timely forum will be held on Tuesday, May 3, 2005, at the Independent Institute Conference Center in Oakland, California. A reception begins at 6:30 p.m., and the program will start at 7:00 p.m. and conclude at approximately 8:30 p.m.

Maybe I'm missing something, but what's new about "no system works well in a culture of pervasive corruption"?

I personally know six separate people who have moved to the United States from Venezuela because of Chavez. It sounds terrible there.

Argentinian and Chilean friends are thinking about moving back.

I had a friend once. But I ran out of money to pay him.

Supposedly, during the 1990s, these Latin American countries instituted "market reforms"(except for Chile which started implementing them back when Pinochet took over). In most of the countries their economies did not grow as expected (they wanted Asian tiger type of growth). Now these countries are reversing these reforms because they are saying they did not work. This guys thesis is that the reforms themselves were not the problem, they just didn't reform enough. He uses Chile as the example as the role model country to follow. Venezuela, Ecuador etc are reversing their reforms and returning to more controlled ecnomies. And of course their economies are getting even worse.

I don't know thaaaat many people from there, but my family and some people from there that we know are looking at maintaining (or already maintain) "family" homes in the U.S. and Chile' or Argentina.

There is just no plainer way to say this: ain't nothing wrong with Chile'.

If Chile can have an economic miracle, there is no reason the other countries in Latin American can't have one also. When Pinochet took over, Chile's economy was in shambles and they had one of the lowest standard of living in Latin America. Now they have one of the highest, if not the highest.

You are a Catholic right? Why the hell are all these wacko protestant groups (as a Protestant I can say this) turning so many Catholics in Latin America. The church's position on contraception is unfortunate, but I would much prefer a Catholic Latin American, that a Branch Davidian Latin America (or Jehovah Witness Latin America). Is something being done to stop this exodus?

But weren't most of the failures attributable, to at least a great extent, on the fact that they all substituted in their own small favored groups or classes which siphoned off enough for personal (or class) gain such that the system couldn't be sustained? Even a great econ model has to die in the face of that kind of drain, and my impression was that it was those drains that were responsible for much of the failure in that region. The best mutual fund in the world can't sustain a 25% annual fee, nor can a great economy leak out enough to make the favored group into billionaires and still provide a decent return for the system itself.

In almost all of those cases, the best bet for economic prosperity following a "reform" would have been to immediately kill the reformers before they consolidated their power.

(Of course, maybe I'm addressing something that is tangential to your thesis at best.)

Your are correct in your thesis and it is tangential. However what you call me thesis, it is not my Thesis. I just stole the Thesis like I usually do. You know what they say.......crime doesn't pay.....as well as politics.

This was starting to remind me of Anne Elk.

Yes.

You should have seen all the mormons riding their bicycles around the country back in the day.

Nope, and no reason to do so. Sorta like Ireland in that, e.g., Chile' just loosened up on divorce laws recently. Religious monopolies seem quite dangerous in developing nations. If anything, I'd rather just see Chile developing and/or maintaining a culture of tolerance for each other. That certainly should not include tolerance of some Cardinal dictating policy to the government (as has, I suspect, been the practice of the past).

strategic bombing
 

I'm more American than you. I'm a yankee-fucking-doodle-dandy born on the fourth of July muthafucka, muthafucka. I'm as American as Eugene Debs, F.D.R. and Mike Quill (after he got his papers). I was loving this country when you were still sucking Margaret Thatcher's dick, so stuff it.

strategic bombing
 

What are we talking, 8-month-olds with rising sun headbands and bayonets in their gums crawling toward the foxhole? I might have seen this in a Bugs Bunny cartoon (before they yanked those kind) but I still have to think that by obliterating an entire city you're gonna catch at least a few who wouldn't have been fighting us on the beaches.