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Category Archives: Latin America
May 18, 2013
ESSAY
Not Even Large Oil Reserves Can Save Socialist Venezuela
Don’t tell Sean Penn, but Venezuela is imploding. WaPo reports that demand for the US dollar is skyrocketing in the country, whose weak economy is pushing people onto a shady currency black market: Because the bolivar is artificially overvalued and practically … Continue reading
May 8, 2013
ESSAY
Brazil Scores Victory at WTO, But Does It Matter?
The WTO has just selected a new leader amid one of the gravest crises since its founding. The race had been narrowed to two candidates, Roberto Azevedo of Brazil and Herminio Blanco of Mexico. Both are widely respected figures from … Continue reading
May 2, 2013
ESSAY
Obama in Mexico to Boost Ties
President Obama is in Mexico today, above all else to deepen economic ties. Mexico has come very far in a relatively short amount of time, and President Enrique Peña Nieto will greet President Obama with the reputation of a capable … Continue reading
May 1, 2013
ESSAY
Black Market Dollar Prices Skyrocketing in Argentina
Argentines are now paying over nine pesos for every dollar on the country’s currency black market. La Nacion reports that rampant peso inflation and tight controls on the US dollar are pushing prices up on the “blue dollar” higher than … Continue reading
April 25, 2013
ESSAY
Businesses Hightail It out of Argentina
A huge Argentine agribusiness has just fled the country for Brazil. The FT reports that high inflation and skyrocketing land costs have pushed El Tejar to move to land the company bought in São Paulo: The sharp increase in land rental costs … Continue reading
April 17, 2013
ESSAY
Venezuela’s Election Turns Bloody: Can the Chavista Movement Survive?
Seven people were killed and more than sixty injured during sporadic riots over the past couple days, following the controversial election of Hugo Chavez’s chosen heir, Nicolas Maduro, to the Venezuelan presidency. Already faced with allegations of vote rigging and the … Continue reading
April 16, 2013
ESSAY
Argentina, Where Dollars Are the New Drugs
Argentines are desperate to gain access to the US dollar, the WSJ reports. Cuevas (caves) where residents can exchange pesos for dollars at black-market rates are flourishing, and people are trying all sorts of tricks to profit off of an economy in … Continue reading
April 15, 2013
ESSAY
Venezuela’s Revolution in Crisis
This weekend, Hugo Chavez’s chosen successor, Nicolas Maduro, won Venezuela’s first election since Chavez’s death—just barely. As Reuters reports, Maduro won with 50.7 percent of the vote over Henrique Capriles’ 49.1 percent, a difference of just 235,000 votes in an … Continue reading
April 8, 2013
ESSAY
Foreign Investors Back US Shale Boom, Ignore Mexico
America’s shale revolution is more global than you think. Twenty percent of investments in American shale energy, totaling more than $26 billion, came from joint ventures with foreign companies. As the Energy Information Administration (EIA) reports: Both U.S. and foreign companies benefit from … Continue reading
April 3, 2013
ESSAY
Illegal Immigration Debate Is So 1990s
The debate over immigration is heating up just as immigration itself is slowing down. According to the NYT, [a]ll across Mexico’s ruddy central plains, most of the people who could go north already have. In a region long regarded as a … Continue reading
March 31, 2013
ESSAY
Chavez Hailed by Followers as “The Redeemer Christ of the Americas”
The Great Hugo has taken on a mystical religious aura in death. His followers are claiming fantastic things, including the claim that Chavez advised Jesus Christ in heaven that it was time for a Latin American pope. Chavez’ followers are … Continue reading
March 22, 2013
ESSAY
Mexico’s President Peña Nieto Adds Telecoms to Ambitious Reform Agenda
Watch out, Mexico: there’s a new sheriff in town, and he’s cleaning up. New President Enrique Peña Nieto’s bill to increase competition in the television and telecom industries (as well as allow more foreign ownership) has just sailed through Mexico’s lower house … Continue reading
March 21, 2013
ESSAY
Venezuela Takes Desperate Measures to Put Off Day of Reckoning
The Venezuelan government is making a frenzied effort to combat shortages of food and medicine. The FT reports that on Monday the country will begin auctioning off dollars to certain business in hopes of spurring them to import the basic goods it … Continue reading
March 14, 2013
ESSAY
The Conclave’s Canny Choice
G.K. Chesterton tells the story of the time that St. Francis of Assisi visited Rome and the pope of the day proudly showed him all the wondrous treasures of the Vatican. Referring to a story in the Biblical Book of Acts in which St. Peter spoke with a beggar in Jerusalem and told him he had no money, the pope pointed to the treasures around him and said, “Peter can no longer say ‘Silver and gold have I none.’”
St. Francis’ response: “Neither can he say, ‘Rise up and walk.’” (In the Bible account, St. Peter first tells the crippled beggar that he doesn’t have any money, then he takes him by the right hand, tells him to get up and walk, and the man, cured, begins to walk and leap.) St. Francis’ point was that the triumphal, institutional church of his day was prestigious and wealthy, but it had lost the inner fire and dedication that made Christianity a world-transforming faith.
Continue reading
March 6, 2013
ESSAY
Expat Living: It’s Not Just for Retirees
Working on the weekdays and scuba-diving in beautiful oceans on the weekend: It sounds like an idyllic way to spend one’s golden years. But as Kathleen Peddicord writes in the HuffPo, many of these overseas “retirement” communities are actually filled with Americans … Continue reading
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