Comments by Riva Mesquita

Great article! But it is important to remember that many of these politicians have been reelected again and again despite numerable denounces of corruption. This law is mostly welcome, but if we were less complacent with corruption in general, it would not be necessary. As they say, each people has the government it deserves...

To this day many Argentines find it difficult to accept that theirs is not an European country, apart from the rest of South America. Brazilians were (are?) kindly referred to as “macacos”, partly because of Brazil’s miscegenation and partly because Brazilians were seen as always trying to imitate the superior Argentines (this expression was also used some years ago in an Argentine newspaper headline before a match against Nigeria – “Que vengan los macacos!”).

Maybe this robust self-steem explains the squad hero’s welcome. After all, many Brazilians define “ego” as that little Argentine who lives inside our head. . .

The comments by Home412AD are some of the most idiotic I've read in a long time. It illustrates how ideology impairs one's judgment. It completely ignores Chile's continuing success and the fact that Argentina was until the 1950s one of the wealthiest countries in the world. One of the absurdities of the IQ claim is that there's no Latin American race to point as "guilty" of intellectual inferiority, like the Nazis liked to do with the Jews and the American racists with the blacks. Latin Americans are of European, Amerindian and African stock, mixed up in all possible ways (just compare Haitians and Uruguayans, for instance!). Perhaps Home412AD thinks the air between Rio Grande and Antarctica has some IQ lowering property?

The same idiotic claims were frequently made with respect to the Chinese and the Indians until at least the 1960s. And in the US at the beginning of the 20th century there was no shortage of claims that letting in immigrants of "inferior" races like Italians, Polish and Spaniards would ruin the country.

The explanations for Latin American inefficiencies are most likely the ones pointed in the report by the Inter-American Development Bank. After having a laugh reading Home412AD's comments, it's worth reading the report...

Let me see if I got it:

(1) Banks financed the building of houses that should not have been built.

(2) Then, these houses were sold to people who couldn´t afford buying them, because these people were financed by banks that should not have financed them.

(3) Then, the banks packaged these "assets" into derivatives they didn't understand and sold them to other banks that didn't understand what they were buiyng.

(4) Then, the rating agencies declared that the banks were "safe", because these blackboxes no one understood were "low risk".

(5) While the party was going on, bankers congratulated one another and gave themselves multi-million dollares bonuses. They also wouldn't let us forget how racional and efficient the market was and how regulation and government were drags on growth.

(6) Now that the party has ended, governments are supposed to save us from Great Depression 2.0, pay the bill and "support" the companies that put the world in this sorry mess.

(7) Lastly, if by dealing with this mess governments get much indebted, their credit may be downgraded, because the markets don't like irresponsible behavior.

Did I miss something?

Ahhh, the delights of communism... Communism is going to save the planet! People won't waste water because there will be no water, they won't waste electricity because there will be no electricity either. Soon, they won't be polluting the air (there will be no gas or oil to do so). Excessive consumption leading to mountains of garbage? Consider it solved!

I say, instead of carbon emission caps, those wicked capitalist countries should put a Chavez in control of the economy! VIVA LA REVOLUCION!

I think South Americans should be grateful to Mr. Chavez. He’s teaching a lesson on how not to run a country, at the cost of hundreds of billions of wasted petrodollars, deindustrialization, the disruption of institutions, and coming years of misery to the Venezuelan people. He’s working so hard to convince us all that socialism stinks that, in fact, I think in the long run he’s lowering the risk of the continent falling to populists. As a result, South Americans will be better-off in the long run thanks to the havoc Mr. Chavez is presently imposing on Venezuela.

He’s giving us this lesson for free, but I think that, as a token of gratitude, after his departure we should send humanitarian aid to his country. . .