PBS Show on Argentina - recommendation

Subject: PBS Show on Argentina - recommendation
From: katlaughing
Date: 09 Aug 02 - 12:20 AM

Did anyone else see the show tonight on PBS's program Wide Angle? It was quite good, filmed in Argentina, showing a lot of the things our Escamillo/Andres has been telling us about. The link goes to a page where you can read about some of show, plus see some highlights of it.

Andres, I am sorry we didn't have our VCR set up, or I would have taped it for you. If they re-run it I will be sure we do so at that time.

I found it especially interesting when they interviewed and followed around a fellow, Ruben Ruvera, who has started the Barter Club. They've printed their own "money" and it showed huge groups of unemployed people getting together to exchange good and services, even an airline. One of their locations was in the second largest manufacturing plant in the world which has been standing empty for years.

Another thing was a television show some out-of-work tv personnel started called Recursos Humanos/Human Resources. People went through a lengthy process of screening to gain one of two positions on the tv show to be voted as the best and successful candidate for a job. In this instance it was mostly young women, vying for a sales clerk's job. Their families were with them on the show and prior to that, the tv show had visited their homes to give it a personal touch, explaining why they need the job, etc. Then the audience voted on who should get it.

It also showed the daily noontime protests when people take to the streets to go beat on the walls of the banks with their hammers, pots and pans, etc. Very powerful images, peopls from all walks of life, united. It was an awesome sight.

One other thing...an absolutely gorgeous couple dancing a tango. This was not just your usual tango, though. The lyrics were in protest and included phrases about "four vampires" sucking the life blood of the peoples and the dance steps, etc. reflected the words. It was extremely well done.

Andres, my friend, I was already in love with your country and city because of you and your heart. Because of this program, bringing it to life, seeing and hearing it, my respect and affection for you and all the rest, has grown even more so. Roger and I do wish you well and hold you and Argentina dear in our hearts.

Un Abrazo,

Rogelio & Katalina

Subject: RE: PBS Show on Argentina - recommendation
From: Sorcha
Date: 09 Aug 02 - 12:54 AM

I missed it, I was out playing at the Co.Fair. Looks to be very good though.

Subject: RE: PBS Show on Argentina - recommendation
From: hesperis
Date: 09 Aug 02 - 01:33 AM

Thanks for the link, Kat. I missed it as well, I'm not much for the TV. Programs like this make me regret that sometimes.

Subject: RE: PBS Show on Argentina - recommendation
From: GUEST,.gargoyle
Date: 09 Aug 02 - 02:56 AM

Little puss-pussy, sorry but most VCR's in Argentina can't read your tapes.

Argentina once, the strongest economy in South America, is unable to secure loans from the IMF....a coalition of over 180 nations has already granted relief to Uruguay, Columbia and Brazil but the Bank of Nova Scotia damned Canuks has abandoned the corrupted plight of Argentina.

When they embrace domocracy...again....perhaps, things will change.

Sincerely,
Gargoyle

Subject: RE: PBS Show on Argentina - recommendation
From: Escamillo
Date: 09 Aug 02 - 02:57 AM

And this was the model of the market reform, the Latinamerican leader of the modern economy, as directed by the International Monetary Fund and all the G7 industrial countries.

Thanks Katalina for bringing this to our consideration. Lately I have been a little reluctant to update my threads on "Still alive in Argentina" because I didn't want to show so much economic and moral misery.

Everything that happens here is unheard of, unbeleivable, absurd and surrealistic. Ill people are dying because they can't withdraw their savings and are elder or unemployed. Medieval bartering invades the big cities. Legions of "cartoneros" (looking for paper and carton in the trash bins) changed the face of our streets, and unemployment statistics forget about those who have dropped from the calculations because they abandoned the job of looking for a job.

In the meantime, rich bankers and financists discuss how they can get another loan from the IMF, while their funds are safe in Switzerland and U.S. accounts. The main bank run was not that of the common people, it was the banker's and politicians run, which emptied the country.

Some arrangement with the IMF is coming, because Mr. Paul O'Neill has visited two poor schools near Buenos Aires and "felt" the poverty, so the scene is mounted for a new agreement from the generosity of the creditors.

IMF, please stay away ! You have been granting loans after loans to your friends at the government, and those funds have been stolen in front of your noses, dollar after dollar, for almost 40 years ! We could have rebuilt this country only with our hands and the funds that you have paid in commissions to the foreign and local lobbysts.

Would you beleive that Argentina has paid dozens of millions of dollars as FINES for having received development loans from the IDB which have never been USED and have been returned ? Isn't it absolutely ridiculous ? No, if you consider the commissions !

Modern liberal globalized theory simply does not work, not even for the large capitals. Let the capitals take the power, and you'll soon have another war, to not mention the children who don't eat and don't get education. Let the capitals grow uncontrolled, and you will find that your share stocks are false, and you have been robbed. Let them associate with thieves, and they will ruin entire nations.

As to the question of "will this happen in the U.S.?", I would say no, because in the U.S. the people would have reacted immediately against one tenth of the abuses that Argentina has suffered. We were weak, stupid and faint-hearted. Until today.

How'd you say? Rant off ? Ok, rant off. :)

Un abrazo - Andrés (Looking for a hammer - tomorrow I have to go banking)

Subject: RE: PBS Show on Argentina - recommendation
From: GUEST,.gargoyle
Date: 09 Aug 02 - 02:59 AM

Puss-pussy - you are a propagandist's dream - feed you emotion and forget the facts.

absolutely gorgeous couple dancing a tango..."four vampires" sucking the life blood of the peoples ....

Sincerely,
Gargoyle

Subject: RE: PBS Show on Argentina - recommendation
From: Escamillo
Date: 09 Aug 02 - 03:07 AM

Gargoyle, tapes recorded in NTSC can be played in our VCRs, because the dependence is so flattening, that all VCRs are dual-system ! :))))

Subject: RE: PBS Show on Argentina - recommendation
From: katlaughing
Date: 09 Aug 02 - 05:25 AM

Oh, gargly-argly...put a sock in it.

Andres, thank you for the further explanations. I forgot to mention they also followed a woman who went from ATM to ATM trying to get funds from her various accounts. She said the more accounts you had, the more you could possibly get, by transferring from one to another and by going to the ATMs at different times of the day. She finally took the government to court, sued for her family's money, over $180,000 (US) which had been reduced to about $5,000 (US). She was awarded about 60% of it by the court, but then the President of the country said that court orders should not be executed!

I was wondering what you thought of the Barter CLub. The way they presented it made it look as though it was quite popular and a sort of grassroots movement.

Some of the scenes they showed of the massive protests, some of which turned violent, made me very glad that you have continued to be safe.

I hope you are right about America. Right now, I think the people here are so apathetic and blindly stupid about what Bush and Co. have been doing, I don't have much faith in them taking charge and not allowing such shenanigans. So many have already been robbed by Enron, etc.; Bush speaks of war as a given, and still the average person does nothing.

Thanks, Andres,

kat

Subject: RE: PBS Show on Argentina - recommendation
From: GUEST,.gargoyle
Date: 09 Aug 02 - 07:05 AM

speaks of war as a given,

Worry LK, since the attacks, a state of war HAS been declared.

Sincerely,
Gargoyle

Subject: RE: PBS Show on Argentina - recommendation
From: GUEST
Date: 09 Aug 02 - 07:25 AM

"The forces of evil will carry their coffins on their backs, die in disgraceful failure, taking their schemes back with them or digging their own graves

Subject: RE: PBS Show on Argentina - recommendation
From: Escamillo
Date: 09 Aug 02 - 02:34 PM

Probably the reduction was 180,000 to 50,000, but anyway, the steal is outrageous. I personally did never trust in the promises of the banks who called for deposits in U.S. dollars offering high interests and wide smiles, some years ago, and then kept my couple of dollars and pesos at home (as medieval as it could seem). Many people did neither trust, and took their money out of the country, to off-shore banks or U.S or Europe. Especially those funds stolen from the nation's resources, went to off-shore banks.

My personal problem, as the problem of millions of small companies, artisans and professionals, is that we can't collect anything in cash, we collect only checks (if we are so fortunate to be working) which come from checks from checks from checks, and the banks will not allow more than 80 dollars/week in cash. We can use the rest through debit cards (the most expensive in the world) or our own checks (if you "qualify" and pay the extremely high expenses). Furthermore, the bank deducts 1.2 % of each transaction as an additional tax dictated by the government. And nobody guarantees that one day we will not find our bank closed. (The case of the Canadian ScotiaBank) Credit cards are rejected everywhere, and have fallen practically out of use.

Sorry - I have to rush to the bank which closes at 4 PM, because the ATMs will probably be empty, so we have to go to the counters. More at night.

Un abrazo - Andrés

Subject: RE: PBS Show on Argentina - recommendation
From: hesperis
Date: 09 Aug 02 - 03:00 PM

The barter clubs are a very positive sign. Hopefully the people will retain that power to make their own economies, and not let the government get into it, like here in Canada and in the US where the governments TAX barter!

(Like, tell me again how a non-money economy can be taxed in money? Does the government have any use for wool, or bread, or apples? Sheesh...)

Honestly, barter is the only thing in Argentina right now that gives me hope. It's like there's a new order coming through the ashes and remnants of the old construction. And barter is much more sustainable and real than money can ever be, save back in the days when money was actually the value of gold and silver. Money isn't tied to anything real anymore, so it isn't real anymore. Then we wonder why people starve... even in so-called "affluent" countries.

Subject: RE: PBS Show on Argentina - recommendation
From: Escamillo
Date: 09 Aug 02 - 10:15 PM

Regarding barter clubs, I partially disagree. Although barters are saving thousands of people from starvation or violence, they are a closed circuit reduced to elementary goods and services, very far from any possibilities of a recovery of our economy. We have to consider that Argentinean industry is still exporting cereals and food products to all the world, cars to Brazil, tubes to the U.S., oil ducts and petroleum-related installations to the far East, and nuclear reactors to Argelia, Egypt and recently Australia ! (Not to mention the hundreds of billions of Argentinean-origin funds which are motorizing the economies of the world, very far away from our coasts). If we lived of a few farm products, then bartering would not be so far from the original economy, but presently it is not more than an aspirin for an interne of the NYCFTTS(*).

I beleive that the best opportunity for Argentina could be based in:

1) Serious integration with Brazil, in a common currency, common rules and objectives

2) Serious application of the laws to provide for at least a partial recovery of funds that were stolen, and demand to all local and foreign banks to honor their obligations with the common people.

3) Suspension of relations with the International Monetary Fund

4) Favor the export activities for everything that we can produce. Now our prices are tremendously competitive. We can sell anything at one third of its normal value. We can't take vacations in Miami, not even in Brazil, but our products at these prices, will be more than welcome in any part of the world, even when the big countries threaten to boicott Argentina products if we don't get an agreement with the IMF, because .. business are business, and customers in the world are willing to make bargains, even against the IMF wishes.

But.. they didn't name me to Economy Ministry. Only offered the Dogs Division, but I'm going to refuse. It is said that the food is lousy.

Un abrazo - Andrés (*) Neil Young Center For The Terminally Screwed, an institution I admire and knew of here at Mudcat

Subject: RE: PBS Show on Argentina - recommendation
From: GUEST
Date: 10 Aug 02 - 02:18 AM

Eat Drink and Be Merry

Which is your winery of choice?

Bodega Valentin Bianchi

Bodegas Norton

Crotta

Finca Flichman

Menem

Navarro Correas

Nicolas Catena

Resero

Trapiche

Subject: RE: PBS Show on Argentina - recommendation
From: Escamillo
Date: 10 Aug 02 - 04:52 AM

Anyone except Menem :)

Subject: RE: PBS Show on Argentina - recommendation
From: GUEST
Date: 12 Aug 02 - 11:54 AM

Excerpt from today's Financial Times of London

Latin America's economic crisis has intellectual implications which extend far beyond that continent. It sounds the death-knell of "transitionology", the belief that by following a simple set of universal rules, countries all over the world can in a short space of time make the transition to democracy and the free market. This mantra is now intellectually dead, though it will doubtless live on in the mouths of politicians, pundits and diplomats. What we are left with is history, with its many winding paths and lack of final destinations.

Latin America is a particularly striking example of the triumph of hope over experience. Several states have achieved very real progress, and are of course vastly richer than they were a century ago. But very few indeed have achieved western standards of living and levels of democracy. Argentina was probably closer to such a breakthrough a century ago than it is today.

Subject: RE: PBS Show on Argentina - recommendation
From: katlaughing
Date: 12 Aug 02 - 02:09 PM

That goes along with what the program was saying: if this is what happens to the "A+" student, i.e. Argentina, it does not bode well for the other contries. Argentina was the shining, best example.

Subject: RE: PBS Show on Argentina - recommendation
From: Escamillo
Date: 12 Aug 02 - 11:42 PM

> Argentina was probably closer to such a breakthrough a century ago than it is today.

Funny that these words come from the Financial Times of London. A century ago, Argentina was far from the influence of the USA, Spain, Italy, Germany, but practically submitted to the large capitals from the British Islands, who owned the funds, the cattle, the wheat, the lands, the railroads, the meat industry and the ports and the ships which transported the products. And some years earlier, the British influence pressed for the separation of the Oriental Coast (now Uruguay) and the War of the Three Allies against the nationalist and progresist Paraguay, which population was reduced from 1.4 million to 0.8 million because they dared to develop an independent economy.

This doesn't mean that the railroads, ports, etc. were bad for Argentina's progress. It only means that sometimes people don't speak with their tongues but with the organs that hurt most, for example, the pocket, or the imperial pride. :)

Back to business - tomorrow I have to go banking with my hammer, this time the HSBC.

Un abrazo - Andrés

Note: British friends: you know that my ironies go against the capitals and not against the people.

Subject: RE: PBS Show on Argentina - recommendation
From: bbc
Date: 13 Aug 02 - 12:23 PM

We saw the show, too. It was certainly very sobering. Andres, I appreciate you keeping us informed about the situation in your country. I am so sorry this is happening.

bbc