[RD] News Thread of the Americas

[Patine]

If mass demonstrations would cause the fall of Bolsanaro... given the Covid risk.... it could be the first of its kind where that mass demonstration happens from balconies, windows and doors with pots and pans

It seems to me something remarkably similar happened in one of those pre-Risorgimento Italian nations in early 1800's - I just can't put my finger on the event, or enough specific information to make a decent Google search...

 

[r16]

oh ı wanna wanna troll Bolsanaro , but wait it is the system these days and he can send up planes to chem trail the whole country . But wanna wanna troll Bolsanaro .

 

[Hrothbern]

It seems to me something remarkably similar happened in one of those pre-Risorgimento Italian nations in early 1800's - I just can't put my finger on the event, or enough specific information to make a decent Google search...

Not the Sicilian revolution of 1848 I think... that was a violent one
But perhaps the driving away of the Bourbons out of Naples during the Vienna treaty talks ?

 

[innonimatu]

What's going on in Brasil right now ?
From what I was able to piece together from twitter, links and google translate it looks like states are now blatantly ignoring the federal governments and passing theit own laws to combat the pandemic.
It's not a coup (yet), but Bolsanaro has lost all authority, even with far right governors.

Lots of virtue signaling about the coronavirus situation, with governors having bet on the lockdown side and Bolsonaro having aped Trump and bet on the keep running it'll be nothing side. State governors and the local congress are ignoring his authority but that is not unusual in Brasil. Nothing much in substance, if Bolsanaro falls it'll be because the military will have push him out, not because of any protests which, with at this time are ineffective. The liberal elites whom many governors serve, and who overthrew Dilma and made Lula a political prisoner, have turned against Bolsonaro bot that is positioning for the next election. The "other right", landowners and military, swill have to turn also but they're only withdrawing support for now. His remaining active allies are the evangelical leeches.

 

[Hrothbern]

Is it time to replace Bolsanaro by someone less controversial ?
Sérgio Moro, Minister of Justice, resigned today, after a sharp attack on Bolsanaro.
Moro seems to be popular among right-wing people.

 

[Patine]

Is it time to replace Bolsanaro by someone less controversial ?
Sérgio Moro, Minister of Justice, resigned today, after a sharp attack on Bolsanaro.
Moro seems to be popular among right-wing people.

And while we're at it, Trump's Tweeting about he really wants to get outside of the White House (due to the quarantine). A simple Nixon-style resignation would fix that quickly, as it would suddenly no longer be his residence.

 

[Takhisis]

It is incredible how the utterly corrupt Peronist party is just having all of its ‘unlawful detainees’ (i.e. former government officials and contractors who've plead guilty to embezzlement, bribery and other corruption charges) removed from gaol while everybody stays inside and looks at the coronavirus horror show.

Just like Bolsonaro, they believe in total power. They just believe in calling each other an opponent, but both effectively believe in abolishing democracy. Currently Argentina's ruled by its executive branch alone, and screw the constitution… they actually seized power with unconstitutional ‘emergency’ laws back in December, long before the pandemic scare arrived to give their takeover of society social legitimacy borne out of fear. Meanwhile, Bolsonaro's taking the approach that there's no such thing as a pandemic and wants the army to help him overthrow the judiciary and legislative branches of government. The end result is the same, just like Poland in 1939: choose your poison.

 

[innonimatu]

Is it time to replace Bolsanaro by someone less controversial ?
Sérgio Moro, Minister of Justice, resigned today, after a sharp attack on Bolsanaro.
Moro seems to be popular among right-wing people.

Moro i scum, the main operative of the coup that overthrew Dilma and paved the way to Bolsonaro. He may retain some fans but also plenty of people who hate him. And Bolsonaro's fans have now been instructed to hate him.

My bet is on the military in Brasil arranging an accident to get rid of Bolsonaro, before he sinks them with him. They may be too late, the wheels of impeachment are already moving again and and accident then would get kind of obvious.

 

[Patine]

Moro i scum, the main operative of the coup that overthrew Dilma and paved the way to Bolsonaro. He may retain some fans but also plenty of people who hate him. And Bolsonaro's fans have now been instructed to hate him.

My bet is on the military in Brasil arranging an accident to get rid of Bolsonaro, before he sinks them with him. They may be too late, the wheels of impeachment are already moving again and and accident then would get kind of obvious.

A national military that has made more coups on it's own government (or serious and credible threats thereof) than fought wars...

 

[Takhisis]

A national military that has made more coups on it's own government (or serious and credible threats thereof) than fought wars...

That's, like, almost every country south of the Rio Grande.

 

[Takhisis]

Venezuela continues to unravel.

Claiming to be defending itself against ‘foreign invasion’ its ‘government’ has placed good ole containers to block access to Caracas after looting has continued spreading in response to the continued lack of drinking water, electricity, food and other such Western decadent extravagances.
It is telling that they call it ‘foreign invasion’ after sending in their militias to attack antigovernment demonstrators earlier this week. Maybe it does mean that everybody outside the party structure is an unperson with token citizenship at best.

 

[Patine]

Venezuela continues to unravel.

Claiming to be defending itself against ‘foreign invasion’ its government has placed good ole containers to block access to Caracas after looting has continued spreading in response to the continued lack of drinking water, electricity, food and other such Western decadent extravagances.
It is telling that they call it ‘foreign invasion’ after sending in their militias to attack antigovernment demonstrators earlier this week. Maybe it does mean that everybody outside the party structure is an unperson with token citizenship at best.

Which government? I thought it currently had two competing governments that don't recognize each other...

 

[Takhisis]

I didn't expressly state so, but it's obviously the de facto one. The other one doesn't have a million-plus militiamen around the country.

I'll add an edit just in case…

 

[Takhisis]

The vicepresidentess sought to incomodate the Supreme Court of Argentina by asking them for permission to have the Senate finally get together and hold sessions under the quarantine via electronic communications.

a) this included in her attorneys' allegations:

debe decidir ahora si vamos a escribir la historia con sangre o con razones, porque la escribiremos igual".
[the court] must now decide whether we shall write history with blood or with reason, because we shall write it anyway​

that's right, an elected official threatened another branch of government with armed violence without provocation.

b) thankfully the Supreme Court first rejected the request and refused to rule on it because it's on the danged constitution itself that they do not have original jurisdiction on such an issue and then in an obiter dictum they did say that the Senate is supposed to establish its own internal rules and there appears to be nothing in the constitution and present lower-level legislation that forbids it.

c) instead of all this theatre the 72 senators could just have moved to the Lower House which is right across the street and has room for 270-odd legislators.

 

[Patine]

The vicepresidentess sought to incomodate the Supreme Court of Argentina by asking them for permission to have the Senate finally get together and hold sessions under the quarantine via electronic communications.

a) this included in her attorneys' allegations:

debe decidir ahora si vamos a escribir la historia con sangre o con razones, porque la escribiremos igual".
[the court] must now decide whether we shall write history with blood or with reason, because we shall write it anyway​

that's right, an elected official threatened another branch of government with armed violence without provocation.

b) thankfully the Supreme Court first rejected the request and refused to rule on it because it's on the danged constitution itself that they do not have original jurisdiction on such an issue and then in an obiter dictum they did say that the Senate is supposed to establish its own internal rules and there appears to be nothing in the constitution and present lower-level legislation that forbids it.

c) instead of all this theatre the 72 senators could just have moved to the Lower House which is right across the street and has room for 270-odd legislators.

"I love the Republic. I love democracy. And I will gladly set aside these emergency powers when this crisis has been resolved."
-Supreme Chancellor Palpatine, (aka, Darth Sidious, Dark Lord of the Sith), to the Galactic Senate, "Star Wars, Episode II, Attack the Clones."

 

[Takhisis]

Yeah, but the funniest fact is that, as I've posted recently, that the emergency powers were seized in December, awarded by an out-of-season congress.

 

[Takhisis]

How to deal with a pandemic in the prison system:

0) (the prequel) form a militant group for violent prisoners who are told that channelling their violence into something that masquerades as political activism is the same as moral rehabilitation
1) give smartphones to inmates so that they can ‘stay in touch’
2) impose no controls as they start talking to one another and also calling their surviving victims on the outside to taunt and threaten them with their impending liberation
3) use the pandemic as cover for quietly freeing a lot of your ‘political prisoners’ trying to pass them off as oppressed arbitrary detainees instead of criminals who plead guilty to murder, embezzlement, drug trafficking, money laundering, etc. just to be able to see daylight within their lifetimes
4) when non-‘political prisoner’ inmates actually rebel and start mutinies across the country demanding that the newly set precedent be applied to them; cave in to their demands, especially the one that all of them have their requests for release be referred to one single judge; also ignore the fact that rapists and murderers are sent back to their neighbourhoods and thus set within a city block or two of their victims, who are not allowed to leave, and robbers just go back to robbing within the day (no controls on them, of course, so ‘house’ arrest is theoretical);
5) get yourself demonstrations against you, a quarter-million signatures against it in a day and your own government divided on the issue.

Quite the own goal.

Add to it bonus points such as the corrupt judge himself posting videos on social media mocking those who protest his decisions…

 

[innonimatu]

Argentina, neoliberal debt binge and default, another cycle closes:

A brief history first. When Mauricio Macri took over as President of Argentina in 2015, he took the typical neoconservative route: financial liberalization (including current and capital account movements and a freely floating exchange rate initiated with a huge devaluation), reducing progressive taxes, increasing the fiscal deficit, increasing public debt, then reducing public spending to balance the budget. The borrowing spree that rapidly increased Argentina’s public debt by more than a third to $321 billion in 2017, mostly in US dollars. That party was over quickly: by 2018, fiscal and current account deficits were more than 5 per cent of GDP, public debt ballooned to nearly 90 per cent of GDP, the currency collapsed as capital fled, and inflation soared. The IMF was called in, and provided a controversial bailout with its usual conditions—massive budget cuts, primary budget balance in 2019 and a reduction of the external deficit. Argentina did everything the Fund asked for, and the economy got steadily worse. Growth had collapsed well before the pandemic, inflation is surging, and there is immense hardship among people.
Public debt is 90 per cent of GDP and foreign currency debt is 70 per cent of GDP; both will explode without restructuring. A lot of repayment is due this year, making it both currently unaffordable and unsustainable over time. The new Finance Minister Martin Guzman has put forward a proposal that aims to enable the country to move to a more sustainable debt trajectory by enabling the economy to recover and grow.
This requires a restructuring of existing foreign debt – and Argentina’s proposal is a relatively modest one. The projections are based on a smaller fiscal contraction than required by the IMF, and medium term growth of 1.2 to 2 per cent, along with realistic trade balance projections and a plan to build up foreign exchange reserves. The idea is to make the debt service manageable and enable sufficient buffers to protect against exogenous shocks like Covid-19. To this end, Argentina is offering to restructure $65 billion of foreign debt to bondholders, under which interest payments would resume in 2023 and principal payments in 2026. While some creditor groups rejected the offer, the negotiations continue.
Interestingly, the IMF—both its head Kristalina Georgieva and staff—has supported the essentials of Argentina’s plans. Perhaps trying to atone for its past sins with Argentina, a technical note from IMF Staff noted that restoring public debt sustainability “will require a decisive debt operation, with a meaningful contribution from private creditors”, to bring foreign exchange debt servicing levels to 3 per cent of GDP over the medium term. In other words, creditors who want to be paid at all should recognise that they have to take a haircut now.

More countries will default on debt. South America has a number of countries large enough to do more of their own stuff, rather than constantly repeat the same old patter of high foreign trade (commodity export and high-value products import), debt buildup, capital export by corrupt bourgeois classes, default and deep crisis for the mas of the population. But how will they change their ways if the upper middle classes who manage things keep getting away with escaping the consequences of this mismanagement? As in the previous default there as ample warning, and government allowing for capital to be moved out before the crisis really hits.

Restoring capital controls, as things were done prior to the "Washington Consensus" imposed on the world by the US-Western Europe alliance in the 1980s, is the single most important policy worldwide to tackle corruption and misgovernment.

 

[Patine]

Argentina, neoliberal debt binge and default, another cycle closes:



More countries will default on debt. South America has a number of countries large enough to do more of their own stuff, rather than constantly repeat the same old patter of high foreign trade (commodity export and high-value products import), debt buildup, capital export by corrupt bourgeois classes, default and deep crisis for the mas of the population. But how will they change their ways if the upper middle classes who manage things keep getting away with escaping the consequences of this mismanagement? As in the previous default there as ample warning, and government allowing for capital to be moved out before the crisis really hits.

Restoring capital controls, as things were done prior to the "Washington Consensus" imposed on the world by the US-Western Europe alliance in the 1980s, is the single most important policy worldwide to tackle corruption and misgovernment.

What will happen when much bigger economies - Russia, Brazil, France, Italy, Germany, Canada, Australia, the UK, Taiwan, South Korea, THE UNITED STATES - start defaulting on debts? Is it really that unthinkable, or that far down the road, now?

 

[Zardnaar]

What will happen when much bigger economies - Russia, Brazil, France, Italy, Germany, Canada, Australia, the UK, Taiwan, South Korea, THE UNITED STATES - start defaulting on debts? Is it really that unthinkable, or that far down the road, now?

Unlikely all of that list will default.

Russia has very little debt to GDP ratio, those countries with very bad leaders (South America, Italy, Greece, Spain) will have a rough time of it.

Countries that default will have their currencies bomb and credit ratings downgraded. They won't be able to sustain austerity levels of government spending.

USA and UK are already in a lot of debt but they can add another 50% or so and to to WW2 levels of debt and spend the next 50 years paying it down.

100%+ gdp to debt ratio not considered good, USA is starting at 107%. Very bad is 150%-180% is quite bad. Japan has 200%.

Great depression and Russia in the 90s come to mind.