Chilean Growth Rates

[Hygro]

Ok, so I spent 2.5 hours preparing this data, 3 hours including the post. In my 15 years on CFC a popular talking point among the right is how Pinochet was so good for the Chilean economy. I got my data from the world bank, stretching from 1960-2015. Spoiler alert: Chileans gonna Chile regardless of who is Head of State. That said, it's time to put the Allende-Pinochet competition to rest.

Chile's average gdp/capita growth rate since 1960 has been phenomenal, at 7.5% You can see a huge uptake when Allende takes power, a huge downturn when Pinochet takes power (copper exporter in a collapse of copper prices....) a rebound, and then a return to more normal. Note even the small jumps above positive are actually huge, Chinese level growth rates.

Because GDP is calculated annually, and the big events of politics and world commodity prices don't care where the earth is relative to the sun, I show a few different ways of calculating who is in power when and what their average growth rates. I think the meta-average of this, in bold, is the safest bet.

There is one example in which I compare apples to oranges to give Pinochet the most favorable look: Pinochet is CIC (Commander in Chief of the armed forces after retiring the presidency) so all economics/politics is under his threat, but officially out of his hands, against Allende-in-power's worst performance, where Pinochet gets some of Allende's credit. By any reasonable measure Allende's short stint's growth rates utterly stomp Pinochet's. The difference is ~8%. In otherwords, if Pinochet's economy has Chile doubling every 12 years, Allende has the economy doubling every 5.

Here's a graph of the averaged form

And again, all of this is a bit tongue in cheek. Heads of state hardly matter in the big picture. How Chileans Chile (verb), is a feature of the people, geography, infrastructure, modes of production, industries etc, regardless of left or right, is going to define their economic growth rates. Still, Allende wins the correlation game handedly.


PDF of my data at the bottom. Where my notes cut off, you can copy the cells and they will copy the words hidden behind the next cell. I (barely) clarify some things.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

You do realize that the only person who disagreed with you is going to take one look at this and dismiss it completely, then move along with their alternative facts, right? Not saying I don't appreciate the effort, but I'm not sure it will accomplish anything of note.

 

[Hygro]

Let no one fall sway to the Cult-of-Pinochet's one argument evermore.

 

[Narz]

Growth, eh? I tend to shrink when Chile myself.

 

[RomanKing]

You can see a huge uptake when Allende takes power, a huge downturn when Pinochet takes power

You mean Allende took power during a strong economy, collapsed the economy then was charged with 22 constitutional violations and the Chilean legislature ordered Pinochet and the military to oust him.

Let's not intentionally mislead people here.

How can you seriously compare the strong economy that Allende inherited, attributing that to him, while blaming the collapsed economy on Pinochet when he took power AFTER Allende destroyed the economy!?

If this is the sort of thing they teach you at Berkeley you're wasting your money.

Hilariously, your chart still does show that Pinochet improved the Chilean economy, as it was in far better shape at the end of his rule than when he took power.

These charts show the exact same thing without trying to be intentionally biased to shill for communist tyrants like Allende.

 

[Hygro]

Worth mentioning, while dictators can do whatever and presidents can arrange bureaucracies, it is the legistlature with the most economic power: they print and direct the money. The economy Allende "inherited" was the one where he had been the head of the upper house of the bicameral legislature. In other words, he inherited his own economy.

(Except that it's the Chileans and world conditions irrespective of their government who make their economy ofc )

 

[RomanKing]

Worth mentioning, while dictators can do whatever and presidents can arrange bureaucracies, it is the legistlature with the most economic power: they print and direct the money. The economy Allende "inherited" was the one where he had been the head of the upper house of the bicameral legislature. In other words, he inherited his own economy.

Being part of the legislature doesn't give him ownership of the economy by any stretch of the imagination and considering Allende utterly collapsed it shortly after taking power speaks volumes to his incompetence.

 

[Hygro]

And being head of state does?

 

[Bootstoots]

Hygro, what's going on with your data? -6% and -7% in 2014 and 2015 respectively? That would be a severe recession, akin to the current one in Brazil, whereas they actually seem to have suffered a hit from low copper prices but still came out with slightly positive growth overall. And are you sure you've adjusted for inflation correctly? I know it was high in the second half of Allende's term, which could cause spuriously high results. And while I know he Chicago Boys caused a big bust in 1975 with abrupt 'shock therapy', a contraction of over 50% in one year seems really unlikely.

Link to tradingeconomics data, which has data from 1989-present, so roughly the whole post-Pinochet democratic period.

 

[Hygro]

World bank data http://data.worldbank.org/country/chile

All figures are indeed adjust for current inflation. As you can see, the Chilean economy swings violently with commodity prices and global trade. Would make sense they had a boom in the 1990s with the boom in computing.

 

[RomanKing]

And being head of state does?

Yes and the contrast between Pinochet's rule and Allende's is stark. Allende had the entire country on the verge of civil war and starvation.

 

[Hygro]

Allende was running the upper house which meant he had at least half the legislature's structure pushing the agenda. I would surmise the lower house was following the same national trend and electing the same party, but I don't actually know. That would probably mean the economy was fiscally Allendeist before he took charge of the executive branch.

 

[Hygro]

If this is the sort of thing they teach you at Berkeley you're wasting your money.

I mean, I guess so. It shouldn't take college to say "Don't start with your preferred conclusion, start with an openminded investigation."

When I was young I was ready to believe Pinochet was good for Chile's economy. It was hip to be fiscally conservative/socially liberal, and let's be real, the idea that one guy could literally make all the economic difference was really exciting to teenaged Hygro.

 

[RomanKing]

Allende was running the upper house which meant he had at least half the legislature's structure pushing the agenda. I would surmise the lower house was following the same national trend and electing the same party, but I don't actually know. That would probably mean the economy was fiscally Allendeist before he took charge of the executive branch.

When Allende was elected he was only elected with 36% of the vote and needed to govern in a moderate center-left manner to carry the +60% who had voted for center and right-wing parties. Instead he sided with radical communist agitators and subversives to instigate civil unrest to usurp power. The biggest lie that I often hear is that the Communists were peaceful and Allende had created a utopia and because he was elected he had a mandate to implement dogmatic radical far-left reforms. The truth is that Allende destroyed the economy and brought the country to the verge of starvation and a very bloody civil war.

Fortunately, Pinochet was ordered by our legislature (the one you are trying to claim that Allende had total control of) to oust Allende after they charged him with 22 constitutional violations.

You are the most disingenuous person I have seen on this form to date and the fact that you felt the need to make a duplicate of my thread to post intentionally misleading statistics (that you created) is proof of that.

Truth just isn't on the side of the radical left.

 

[Hygro]

I'll take that as a compliment. I'm going to go earn some pleb money. I can't wait to return to this thread.

 

[Bootstoots]

So why does the World Bank disagree so strongly with the Chilean central bank (which seems to be where tradingeconomics is getting its data)? Why is the World Bank in general showing such extreme volatility - I know that commodity exports are very important in Chile but the domestic economy is considerably larger than its exports. Are we just tracking the relative rise and fall of the USD here? Shouldn't we be looking at this in inflation-adjusted Chilean pesos rather than USD? If we're doing it per capita then we'd need to subtract off the population growth rate too, but that should be easy.

Something is going on that's making the World Bank data disagree enormously with other stuff. I'll need to look at it more in detail to figure out exactly what, besides what I've just said.

 

[RomanKing]

If we're doing it per capita then we'd need to subtract off the population growth rate too, but that should be easy.

You have no idea what you're talking about. If the data is per capita. It's already adjusted for population.

 

[Lexicus]

You have no idea what you're talking about. If the data is per capita. It's already adjusted for population.

missedthepoint.jpg

 

[Thorgalaeg]

Worth mentioning unemployment skyrocketed with Pinochet going from 4% to a sustained 20% along with inequality, with few families keeping most of the country richness, including Pinochet's family of course. Today, the gap beetwen the rich and the poor in Chile is among the biggest in the world:

http://247wallst.com/special-report...e-widest-gap-between-the-rich-and-the-poor/4/

So, Pinochet was good for the economy of some Chileans.

 

[Bootstoots]

You have no idea what you're talking about. If the data is per capita. It's already adjusted for population.

The World Bank data is per capita. The tradingeconomics data (using data from the Central Bank of Chile) is, I believe, showing the growth rate of the economy as a whole year-on-year. This is the more usual way of reporting econ data and does not take population growth into account - it's not per capita.

BTW, there's no need to come out swinging at me. I'm disputing Hygro's data and suspect that, once we compare apples to apples, Allende will not end up with a higher growth rate than Chile had during the last five years or so of Pinochet's rule. I don't think the Chicago Boys did a very good job overall, but I also don't think Allende or the import-substitution policies of his predecessors were effective either, relative to 1984-present.