as far as the pinochet being thatcher's 'mentor' thing goes....as i understand it (mostly from naomi klein's 'shock doctrine' ) milton friedman and the 'chicago school of economics came up with the idea of 'disaster capitalism' where ruthless tactics were to be employed to 'repair' 'damage' done in countries such as chile that had tried to institute progressive change and a more egalitarian, state control based society. (just think of the damage being done to destabilise and run down our NHS these days - so that the 'only' answer is more privatisation) anyway, the shock doctrine was first used by pinochet with covert assistance from the CIA and then a strict crackdown on any dissent and the implementation of a fundamentalist monetarist regime. while pinochet may not, strictly speaking, have been a 'mentor' to thatcher and reagan they wholeheartedly bought into the sort of tactics used in chile to destabilise a progressive state, privatise and confront unions and other groups interested in equality, liberalism (in the old fashioned sense) or socialism.