Elections Right-wing Bolsonaro wins Brazil presidential race

[Rod1]

The people that came to power after Pinochet didn't make significant changes in the Chicago boys economical policies, including healthcare, social security, infrastructure, public bids etc. They have been keeping these kind of stuff more or less the same way that the way Pinochet economic team let them... Maybe it has something to do with Chile's actual progress...

Yet despite, as you said, "there were no significant changes" the economy boomed under a democracy while it struggled under a dictatorship.

 

[Loriquero]

Taxation is not theft, and countries like Norway seem to manage with Nationalised resources and extensive social programs just fine.
Trickle down is a myth.
Chile still has it's corruption and it's handful of oligarchs.
Uruguay is doing considerably better (3.7% below $5.50), and it resisted neoliberalism with comparatively high levels of social spending and state owned enterprises.

Taxation is not theft,

So are they optional? can I live my life without paying taxes without the risk of the government coercing me in order to do so?

Norway seem to manage with Nationalised resources and extensive social programs just fine.

Country with lots of natural resources, few people and less corrupt mentality from a more advanced society. In Latinamerica all politicians are worse scum than any theft you can find in the street. All of the are corrupt. ALL OF THEM. And that's not changing soon.
Also, I'm glad you mentioned Norway, they were doing awful in the 80s when the public sector represented more than half of the country's GDP. In the 90s they did many reforms, liberated the economy, lowered taxes and took out many benefits they had. The economy started to grow again at the same time the private sector started to grow again: http://www.reforminstitutet.se/wp/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/Twentyfiveyearsofreform140301.pdf
They also have almost not penalties for companies that fire employees and they don't have a minimum legal wage... I guess Bernie always forget to mention these details.

Chile still has it's corruption and it's handful of oligarchs.

Chile is not an anarchy. Therefore, there is still corruption. Is less problematic than in socialist paradises like Argentina,Brazil or Venezuela though.

Uruguay is doing considerably better (3.7% below $5.50), and it resisted neoliberalism with comparatively high levels of social spending and state owned enterprises.

I give you that. But they are also a strategically positioned country between two strong economic regions, with a population of less than 4million people. Things are less complex. to manage over there.

 

[Ruprecht]

So are they optional? can I live my life without paying taxes without the risk of the government coercing me in order to do so?

Sure it's optional. If you don't earn anything you pay no tax.
Subsistence farming is probably more of an option there than here.

Country with lots of natural resources, few people and less corrupt mentality from a more advanced society. In Latinamerica all politicians are worse scum than any theft you can find in the street. All of the are corrupt. ALL OF THEM. And that's not changing soon.
Also, I'm glad you mentioned Norway, they were doing awful in the 80s when the public sector represented more than half of the country's GDP. In the 90s they did many reforms, liberated the economy, lowered taxes and took out many benefits they had. The economy started to grow again at the same time the private sector started to grow again: http://www.reforminstitutet.se/wp/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/Twentyfiveyearsofreform140301.pdf
They also have almost not penalties for companies that fire employees and they don't have a minimum legal wage... I guess Bernie always forget to mention these details.

Well yes, you can't nationalise resources you don't have. Good that you recognise that removing corruption is completely separate from the existence of the public sector. Not sure that, "less corrupt mentality from a more advanced society" really explains anything though.
Minimum wage isn't necessary with such a generous welfare state (even with fewer benefits available than previously).
They also have very strong unions, so workers have protection.

Chile is not an anarchy. Therefore, there is still corruption. Is less problematic than in socialist paradises like Argentina,Brazil or Venezuela though.

Anarchy leads to feudalism or it's equivalent, and that's anything but free of corruption. Warlords or corporate towns. If you think there's no corruption in mining towns, I doubt you've ever been to one.

I give you that. But they are also a strategically positioned country between two strong economic regions, with a population of less than 4million people. Things are less complex. to manage over there.

There's plenty of smaller countries with considerably more corruption.
Mongolia is postitioned between two strong economic regions, with plenty of mineral resources and a population less than 4 million. Very corrupt.

 

[floivanus]

Crony capitalism isn't socialism.
The reason it was a global crisis, and didn't just effect the US, wasn't a product of subprime mortgages.

Forcing companies to give mortgages that aren’t viable to people who cannot afford them isn’t cronyism

 

[Ruprecht]

Forcing companies to give mortgages that aren’t viable to people who cannot afford them isn’t cronyism

Removing oversight and effectively allowing public underwriting for private gains was.
It's a bit much to say "forced" when they were actively campaigning for even looser regulations, precisely for riskier lending practices. CRA loans weren't anywhere near the bottom of the barrel, and it's not like Bear Stearns or the Lehman Brothers were handing them out anyway.

 

[MiniCraque]

Forcing companies to give mortgages that aren’t viable to people who cannot afford them isn’t cronyism

Who the fuck "forced" anyone to do what?

What is this PragerU garbage?

edit: coincidentally a PragerU video was posted in the previous page. I wasn't aware.

 

[Rod1]

Forcing companies to give mortgages that aren’t viable to people who cannot afford them isn’t cronyism

They didnt forced banks to give mortgages that werent viable.

These mortgages werent the ones that broke the bank, it was middle class "investors" who thought taking mortgages to take a second house and use rent to pay for them (during a bubble) was a wise business decision.

 

[TheGreatA]

Yet despite, as you said, "there were no significant changes" the economy boomed under a democracy while it struggled under a dictatorship.

A part of why economies do not prosper under dictators, atleast nowadays (not necessarily so much in Pinochet's time), is because the markets tend to react negatively to them.

When a tyrant shows indication of being willing to assume overwhelming power, he also shows indication of being willing to seize economic resources for his own purposes, at a whim. And that often makes a country run by a dictator, unworthy of investment. A more, lets say, neutered democracy, does not possess such a power over a country's resources, and is thus, a far less risky choice to invest into.

China is a bit of an exception in this case, but Xi Jinping (in line with Deng Xiaoping's policies) has been very capable of cultivating an image of himself and his regime as very open to investors. If he had not been capable of this, he'd probably still be running a Mao-style 3rd world country, with nobody willing to invest a dime into such a country.

Erdogan failed at the same task and he is starting to reap the just rewards. As did Venezuela's goons.

I do think that the example of China shows that it is not necessarily democracy that is inherent to a prosperous market, as it is the image of democracy as more risk-averse than a dictatorship. A dictatorship which can cultivate an aura of openness to markets, can find itself every bit as prosperous as a democracy.

 

[Rod1]

A part of why economies do not prosper under dictators, atleast nowadays (not necessarily so much in Pinochet's time), is because the markets tend to react negatively to them.

When a tyrant shows indication of being willing to assume overwhelming power, he also shows indication of being willing to seize economic resources for his own purposes, at a whim. And that often makes a country run by a dictator, unworthy of investment. A more, lets say, neutered democracy, does not possess such a power over a country's resources, and is thus, a less risky choice to invest into.

China is a bit of an exception in this case, but Xi Jinping (in line with Deng Xiaoping's policies) has been very capable of cultivating an image of himself and his regime as very open to investors. If he had not been capable of this, he'd probably still be running a Mao-style 3rd world country.

Pretty much.

People assume that dictatorships are low corruption, high law countries, but only because corruption is effectively legalized in said countries as the only law is the law of the dictator.

 

[TheGreatA]

Pretty much.

People assume that dictatorships are low corruption, high law countries, but only because corruption is effectively legalized in said countries as the only law is the law of the dictator.

Based on my observations, the survival of a dictatorship does not necessarily rely even as much on the dictator's economic competence, as it relies on their personality type. In one man-rule, the personality of the leader tends to dictate most of everything. As an irrational system, it also over-rules much of what we think of as rational in politics. Uneducated dictators have sometimes proven better than educated ones, purely based on the strength of their personality, more even-keeled and pragmatic, than hot-headed and idealist.

If all the leader puts forth is macho bullshit, it does not matter how capable their policy ideas might be. Benito Mussolini was very well-read, and a capable politician in many regards, but most of his policies ended up a failure regardless, because he sent all the wrong signals to the world (which ended up with him allying with Hitler, rather than Britain and France as he had originally hoped).

In light of all this, it might be in Bolsonaro's best interests to check some of that stuff at the door. In a true dictatorship, you cannot actually afford to be a Trump or a Bolsonaro, unless you want to govern for a very short, or atleast unprosperous period of time. These sorts of personalities can only truly function in a democratic system (which they sometimes provide a much needed boost of energy for), in a dictatorship they turn out to be a mess.

A "good dictator", if there is such a thing, is one who is capable of projecting a very stable image of himself.

 

[Ruprecht]

A "good dictator", if there is such a thing, is one who is capable of projecting a very stable image of himself.

Lee Kuan Yew's about the best example you'll get for a no-nonsense, benevolent dictatorship.
Maybe Ataturk or Tito.

 

[TheGreatA]

Lee Kuan Yew's about the best example you'll get.
Maybe Ataturk.

I would put Finland's Kekkonen up there as another unheralded dictator, who took an undeveloped country and achieved first world standards. He was such a stable figure that he really made people (within the country and outside of it) think that he was not an autocrat, until they looked back on his reign later.

Yew is definitely up there, for recent examples.

Ataturk's times were more violent, and he also relied on violence quite a bit, but his personality was definitely fit for the job. Erdogan is turning out to be an opposite of him, in many ways. A man with a bigger bark than his bite, whereas Ataturk was the opposite. He cultivated a quite civilized and pacified image, but he was quite a warrior when it came down to it.

You could say Tito as a Communist example. Probably the best of the lot, when compared to his peers (mass murderers, most of them).

 

[Ruprecht]

I would put Finland's Kekkonen up there as another unheralded dictator, who took an undeveloped country and achieved first world standards. He was such a stable figure that he really made people (within the country and outside of it) think that he was not an autocrat, until they looked back on his reign later.

Yew is definitely up there, for recent examples.

Ataturk's times were more violent, and he also relied on violence quite a bit, but his personality was definitely fit for the job. Erdogan is turning out to be an opposite of him, in many ways. A man with a bigger bark than his bite, whereas Ataturk was the opposite.

You could say Tito as a Communist example. Probably the best of the lot, when compared to his peers (mass murderers, most of them).

Yeah, Tito came to mind after I'd first posted that. I'm personally most familiar with Lee Kuan Yew and his legacy though. Not that an authoritarian, micromanaged technocracy is the only form a no-nonsense benevolent dictatorship can take.
All three had a cult of personality, but Lee Kuan Yew deliberately downplayed it. Instead of cultivating it like the others, he purposefully diminished it.

 

[estoyesper]

Jair Bolsonaro, far-right lawmaker and presidential candidate of the Social Liberal Party (PSL), poses with his wife Michelle as they arrive to cast their votes, at a polling centre in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil October 28, 2018. REUTERS/Ricardo Moraes/Pool

BRASILIA (Reuters) - Former Army captain Jair Bolsonaro won Brazil’ presidential election on Sunday, riding a wave of frustration over corruption and crime that brought a dramatic swing to the right in the world’s fourth-largest democracy, official results show.
With 94 percent of the ballots counted, Bolsonaro had 56 percent of the votes in the run-off election against left-wing hopeful Fernando Haddad of the Workers Party (PT), who had 44 percent, according to the electoral authority TSE.
Bolsonaro’s rise has been propelled by rejection of the leftist PT that ran Brazil for 13 of the last 15 years and was ousted two years ago in the midst of a deep recession and political graft scandal.

Let's see if this candidate does something good for Brazil