Patting the wrists, rolling the eyes.

[Spanky]

Originally posted by ironweed
Sometimes it is necessary to destroy the village in order to save it. Especially from the Reds.

Destroy the whole village? 15.4 million people had their lives improved dramatically at the cost of of one thousand lives (I don't think there were that many but I will let this statistic stand for the sake of argument). As opposed to Cuba where thousands have been executed, tens if not hundreds of thousands have been imprisoned in order to condemn and entire island nation to poverty over forty years. We didn't have to destroy the village in Chile. However, in Korea we pretty much destroyed the entire southern part of the country to keep a right wing dictator in power to prevent a socialist dictator from taking over. We could have not "destroyed the village" and let the Northern Koreans take over, but do you really think South Korea would be better off today if we had not intervened. In that situation is was better to destroy the village and install a right wing dictator who tortured and imprisoned him own people than let the alternative.

[Not Bob]

Originally posted by Sexual Harassment Panda
David Stockman? As in "trickle down economics"? That's your economic hero? Dear Lord.

No, actually Stockman was more of a deficit hawk than a supply-sider. He liked tax cuts because he thought that the deficits they created would force government to cut back on othwise untouchable programs like Medicare. He made the mistake of admitting this to a reporter, and was spanked by Reagan.

[Spanky]

Originally posted by ltl/fb
I don't recall that Castro has raped or murdered or tortured people. If he did, did he do it as much as Pinochet is the question.

Please tell me you are not this stupid. Castro is in a league by himself. Allende had already destroyed the Chilean economy, condemning the entire country to years of abject poverty and was very likely going to turn the country in a police state.

[ltl/fb]

Originally posted by Spanky
Please tell me you are not this stupid. Castro is in a league by himself. Allende had already destroyed the Chilean economy, condemning the entire country to years of abject poverty and was very likely going to turn the country in a police state.

Why would I tell you anything. Let along something as ridiculous as me not being stupid. You already know the answer. How you are able to restrain yourself from telling that to all of us, I do not know. Perhaps it has something to do with having lived in Japan.

[Sidd Finch]

Originally posted by Spanky
Destroy the whole village? 15.4 million people had their lives improved dramatically at the cost of of one thousand lives (I don't think there were that many but I will let this statistic stand for the sake of argument).

According to the AP in 2002 (quick Google search): An official Chilean report concluded 3,197 people were killed for political reasons under Pinochet's regime.

This doesn't count the people tortured, disappeared, etc. In these situations a full accounting is tough to come by.

But hey, ya gotta break a few eggs, right? And I'm sure that there was no fear from anyone else in the country.

Can you explain the neo-con philosophy again? You know, the one about promoting democracy? Or is it only democracies whose policies you like?

[Gattigap]

Originally posted by Spanky
Actually, Jennifer Stockman was also standing with us. Jennifer Stockman is the head of the "Republican Majority for Choice" but more importantly she is David Stockman's wife. For those of you not old enough, David Stockman wrote a book called the Triumph of Politics, about his tenure as Reagan's budget director. He was eventually pushed out because he was not a team player. I read his book in college and it changed my life. I switched from Poly Sci to Economics and ended up writing my senior thesis on the Federal Budget Process because of his book. When I figured out she was David Stockman's wife I became a star struck babling idiot and was telling Jennifer how her husband changed my life and if she could get him to read my thesis etc., if I could meet him, and generally making a total fool of myself. Bo Derek had never even heard of David Stockman and I think she left because she was not used to being outshown by a person that was not even present, and that she had never heard of.

So long as you didn't offer to fuck Stockman's wife as a tribute of your love for Stockman, I don't see why Bo should be offended.

[Replaced_Texan]

Originally posted by Not Bob
Riots that we paid for and orchestrated, and an economic mess that we helped create at the behest of ITT, Pepsi, and Anaconda.

Oh, and I am willing to be corrected -- but when exactly did Chile's economy become a marvel? If memory serves, it became robust in the 1990s, after the military stepped down and returned control to the civilians.

The NPR piece I linked to talked about these Chilean economists that went to the University of Chicago in the 50s and 60s under a US government program to spread the free market concept in Latin America.

They were Ivory Tower types until the coup. They were put in charge of the economy when Pinochet came into power in 1974. The article said that there was initial recovery until the debt crisis in the early 80s, and Chile was hit the hardest of all the Latin American countries. It seems that the current recovery started in the early 1990s.

The arcticle points out that the current government is socialist.

[Sexual Harassment Panda]

Originally posted by Not Bob
No, actually Stockman was more of a deficit hawk than a supply-sider. He liked tax cuts because he thought that the deficits they created would force government to cut back on othwise untouchable programs like Medicare. He made the mistake of admitting this to a reporter, and was spanked by Reagan.

Well, I thought that was the whole point of supply side - at least among those who were honest about it.

I remember Stockman as the father of the principle of unidentified budget cuts - the (at the time) $40 billion "magic asterisk".

[Spanky]

Originally posted by Not Bob
No, actually Stockman was more of a deficit hawk than a supply-sider. He liked tax cuts because he thought that the deficits they created would force government to cut back on othwise untouchable programs like Medicare. He made the mistake of admitting this to a reporter, and was spanked by Reagan.

My memory of it was that he critisized Weinberger for increasing defense spending too much after the tax cut. He said that if defense spending was increased as much as Weinberger wanted that the tax cut would have to be rolled back. In addition, in order to get the tax cut through Reagan had to add all sorts of additional tax breaks to buy off Democrats - Stockman complained about that because it screwed his numbers up. Stockman got Reagan to increases taxes in 1984 (many conservatives have conveniently forgot that), and when Reagan refused to veto a bunch of farm subsidies Stockman said publicly that either the farm subsidies had to go, or we would need another tax increase, and that was the final straw.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by Spanky
Destroy the whole village? 15.4 million people had their lives improved dramatically at the cost of of one thousand lives (I don't think there were that many but I will let this statistic stand for the sake of argument).

So does your view change if there were more than 1000 people killed by Pinochet's junta? More than 2000? And how much weight do you give to the torture and rape, etc., of people who weren't killed?

[Sidd Finch]

Originally posted by Not Bob
Riots that we paid for and orchestrated, and an economic mess that we helped create at the behest of ITT, Pepsi, and Anaconda.

Oh, and I am willing to be corrected -- but when exactly did Chile's economy become a marvel? If memory serves, it became robust in the 1990s, after the military stepped down and returned control to the civilians.

Yes, but those civilians merely followed Pinochet's policies. By the time he gave up power, anyone who might have done otherwise had been killed or tortured into submission. It's a critical mass, 100th monkey kind of thing.

Do I have to explain everything to you?

[Sidd Finch]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
So does your view change if there were more than 1000 people killed by Pinochet's junta? More than 2000? And how much weight do you give to the torture and rape, etc., of people who weren't killed?

You are forgetting that all the people who weren't raped or killed immediately had a dramatic improvement in their lives.

Plus, you have to compare to North Korea or you can't really understand how wonderfal a right-wing dictatorship really is. Because, after all, Allende is Spanish for Kim.

[Polendina]

Jews are regularly referred to as "apes and pigs," mostly because that is what the Koran calls them.

I wonder if those q'urans clogged the toilets at Guantanamo?

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by Replaced_Texan
The NPR piece I linked to talked about these Chilean economists that went to the University of Chicago in the 50s and 60s under a US government program to spread the free market concept in Latin America.

They were Ivory Tower types until the coup. They were put in charge of the economy when Pinochet came into power in 1974. The article said that there was initial recovery until the debt crisis in the early 80s, and Chile was hit the hardest of all the Latin American countries. It seems that the current recovery started in the early 1990s.

The arcticle points out that the current government is socialist.

Bad things that happened under Allende's rule were his fault, and a sign of the inevitable Cuba-ization of Chile. (Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain in Washington destabilizing the country.) Bad things that happened under Pinochet were unavoidable bumps in the road on the happy path to the eden promised by free markets.

[Not Bob]

Originally posted by Sexual Harassment Panda
Well, I thought that was the whole point of supply side - at least among those who were honest about it.

I remember Stockman as the father of the principle of unidentified budget cuts - the (at the time) $40 billion "magic asterisk".

You are correct -- I went and googled for the Atlantic article I remembered. He also is credited with "Rosy Scenario" (the overly optimistic economic forecast).