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2,100 | <s>[INST] Taught by experience, governments [/INST] now seem determined not to try again. </s> |
2,101 | <s>[INST] "The biggest capital we have in the region now is the [/INST] stock of our past mistakes, which protects us from repeating them," says Enrique Iglesias, chairman of the Inter-American Development Bank (Is). </s> |
2,102 | <s>[INST] "I've never seen such commitment to defend [/INST] what's been achieved with so many years of pain and adjustment". </s> |
2,103 | <s>[INST] Provided Brazil's new rescue works, and the world economy [/INST] avoids catastrophe, this orthodox policy-tightening may yet prove enough to ensure a fairly speedy recovery. </s> |
2,104 | <s>[INST] But it leaves open the question of [/INST] how Latin America can make itself less vulnerable to volatile capital flows. </s> |
2,105 | <s>[INST] The region was hit partly [/INST] because higher growth had brought large current-account deficits. </s> |
2,106 | <s>[INST] These have been much improved, notably in [/INST] Argentina, which suffered bank failures and a run on deposits in 1995. </s> |
2,107 | <s>[INST] Since then, more than 50 weak banks have closed [/INST] or been bought, and strong foreign banks now account for over 40% of the system. </s> |
2,108 | <s>[INST] Moreover, the government has not only imposed [/INST] a deposit-insurance scheme, but recently tightened banks' liquidity requirements, especially on foreign borrowing. </s> |
2,109 | <s>[INST] This year, despite the collapse of two middle-sized [/INST] banks, and fears of a Brazilian devaluation, deposits in Argentina's banks have risen. </s> |
2,110 | <s>[INST] Most economists think Brazil needs a modest devaluation, if it [/INST] is to generate enough export growth, and so a better trade balance, to reduce its dependence on shortterm capital. </s> |
2,111 | <s>[INST] Once calm is restored, it may-though its economic team says [/INST] notadjust its exchange-rate system (a managed crawl, which lets the real slide against the dollar by 7.5% a year). </s> |
2,112 | <s>[INST] The trouble is that when emerging [/INST] countries try such modest adjustments, markets tend to panic. </s> |
2,113 | <s>[INST] Opinions are now polarised around two extremes: Mexico's free float; and Argentina's rigid [/INST] currency-board system, which limits its local money supply to the level of its foreign-exchange reserves, and ties its peso, one-for-one, to the dollar. </s> |
2,114 | <s>[INST] An external shock under Mexico's system is likely to mean, [/INST] as it has recently, inflation and falling real wages; under Argentina's, less liquidity and higher unemployment, as in 1995-96. </s> |
2,115 | <s>[INST] Both are unwelcome, politically as economically, but they are not the [/INST] same, and other Latin Americans will be watching closely how the two economies compare in the next year or so. </s> |
2,116 | <s>[INST] Educating for equality In Latin America's [/INST] shanty towns, however, other issues are on people's minds. </s> |
2,117 | <s>[INST] If opinion polls show only grudging support for democracy in the region, it may [/INST] be because the politicians have done disappointingly little to improve the quality of life for ordinary people, in two main areas: personal security and social fairness. </s> |
2,118 | <s>[INST] Some blame Latin America's high and rising levels of [/INST] crime, especially violent crime, on the end of dictatorial and paternalist regimes, and on higher unemployment. </s> |
2,119 | <s>[INST] These may among the reasons, [/INST] but they are not the whole story. </s> |
2,120 | <s>[INST] Its causes include rapid urbanisation, the illegal trade in drugs [/INST] and arms, and mere demography-Latin America now has a bulge of teenagers, which in time will slim. </s> |
2,121 | <s>[INST] Where democratic governments can be blamed [/INST] is the low priority many have given to police reform. </s> |
2,122 | <s>[INST] Or to corruption, which is made more [/INST] noticeable by democracy-and in its turn makes austerity harder to bear. </s> |
2,123 | <s>[INST] But perhaps the most politically damaging failure of [/INST] democracy and market reform alike has been their failure to reduce deep-rooted inequalities. </s> |
2,124 | <s>[INST] Latin America's income distribution [/INST] is the most unequal in the world. </s> |
2,125 | <s>[INST] According to a new IDB study, in the region as [/INST] a whole, the richest io% of the population gets 4o% of overall income, the poorest 3o% only 7.5%. </s> |
2,126 | <s>[INST] It is partly a function of Latin America's stage of development: labour is more plentiful, [/INST] therefore worse-rewarded, than capital; rapid urbanisation at first increases inequality, because city dwellers earn more; past neglect of schooling means that an educated minority earn unduly well. </s> |
2,127 | <s>[INST] Mining and large-scale tropical agriculture [/INST] suck up scarce capital, while offering relatively few jobs. </s> |
2,128 | <s>[INST] And wildly fluctuating commodity prices contribute to the boom-bust [/INST] cycles characteristic of Latin America and damaging to its prosperity, investment and creation of jobs. </s> |
2,129 | <s>[INST] To make inequality worse, as companies have modernised to compete in open markets, [/INST] the immediate effect has been to raise the demand for and pay of skilled workers, especially graduates, while many unskilled ones have lost their jobs. </s> |
2,130 | <s>[INST] Reform has produced higher growth, [/INST] and cut poverty rates, but has not reduced inequality. </s> |
2,131 | <s>[INST] The case for Latin America to make a much bigger [/INST] effort in education-and not only at primary levels-has rarely been put more clearly than in the IDB study. </s> |
2,132 | <s>[INST] In fact, there is an unusually wide consensus in the region [/INST] that the way to a fairer society is more, and more efficient, spending on education and health for the poor. </s> |
2,133 | <s>[INST] There is also far more agreement than in the [/INST] past that the way to make this possible is to create a competitive market economy. </s> |
2,134 | <s>[INST] Far from undermining such a consensus, Latin [/INST] America's current woes underline the urgency of putting these policies into practice. </s> |
2,135 | <s>[INST] ___ Document 296 of 400 [/INST] The Americas: Which candidate for Argentina's alliance? </s> |
2,136 | <s>[INST] Author: Anonymous Publication info: [/INST] The Economist 349.8095 (Nov 21, 1998): 37. </s> |
2,137 | <s>[INST] accountid=28034 Abstract: In Argentina, the Radical Union and [/INST] the much younger Frepaso joined forces in August 1997 to form the Alliance. </s> |
2,138 | <s>[INST] Now a vote by Alliance members on November 29 is [/INST] to decide between the rival standard-bearers - Frepaso's Graciela Fernandez Meijide and Radical Union's Fernando de la Rua. </s> |
2,139 | <s>[INST] Some Argentines fear an Alliance victory in [/INST] the next presidential election could mean a resurgence of populist politics. </s> |
2,140 | <s>[INST] Full text: Headnote One or other [/INST] of them may well be Argentina's president a year from now. </s> |
2,141 | <s>[INST] Voters find it hard to tell A [/INST] PRIMARY, as voters in the United States would understand it, it is not. </s> |
2,142 | <s>[INST] Argentina's opposition two-party Alliance hopes next year to [/INST] seize the national presidency from the ruling Justicialist Party of President Carlos Menem. </s> |
2,143 | <s>[INST] So the rival would-be challengers [/INST] are going at each other hammer-and-tongs, are they? </s> |
2,144 | <s>[INST] When Fernando de la Rua, Radical mayor of Buenos Aires, [/INST] and Frepaso's hopeful, Graciela Fernandez Meijide, squared off before a television audience last July, they agreed on nearly everything. </s> |
2,145 | <s>[INST] The Radical Union and the [/INST] much younger Frepaso joined forces in August 1997. </s> |
2,146 | <s>[INST] The resultant Alliance, riding a wave of [/INST] resentment against Mr Menem and his government, won congressional elections that October. </s> |
2,147 | <s>[INST] It promises to clean up corruption [/INST] and blames Mr Menem's policies for high unemployment and stagnant salaries. </s> |
2,148 | <s>[INST] But, after some initial Radical hesitation, it also promises business and [/INST] foreign investors that privatisation will not be reversed, and that the currency board that smashed Argentina's inflation will not be touched. </s> |
2,149 | <s>[INST] Now a vote by Alliance members [/INST] on November 29th is to decide between the rival standard-bearers. </s> |
2,150 | <s>[INST] Whatever its faults, Mr Menem's administration since 1989 has [/INST] radically altered Argentina's economy, achieving stability and growth, and winning the confidence of investors, domestic and foreign. </s> |
2,151 | <s>[INST] Some Argentines fear that an [/INST] Alliance victory could mean a resurgence of populist politics. </s> |
2,152 | <s>[INST] That fear was for a time increased, in some minds, [/INST] by the lead-modest though it is-that most polls show for Mr de la Rua over Mrs Fernandez Meijide. </s> |
2,153 | <s>[INST] The Radicals might better, [/INST] in Argentine economic terms, be called conservatives. </s> |
2,154 | <s>[INST] Pollsters attribute a recent swing towards Mr de [/INST] la Rua not to that, however, but to a leaning among voters towards proven experience. </s> |
2,155 | <s>[INST] Now 61, Mr de la Rua, a lawyer from the central [/INST] city of Cordoba, was a Radical congressman for 23 years before being elected mayor of Buenos Aires in 1996. </s> |
2,156 | <s>[INST] He has run it well, striving to return the [/INST] city, in its day sometimes known as the Paris of South America, to its former state. </s> |
2,157 | <s>[INST] He has invested in infrastructure, and [/INST] in cultural events, as well as starting a much-publicised waste-recycling programme. </s> |
2,158 | <s>[INST] His city(unlike the central government) ended 1997 with a [/INST] budget surplus, and it has been able to sell bonds internationally-"tango" bonds to their friends. </s> |
2,159 | <s>[INST] Many believe he would be a [/INST] stronger candidate, and later a more effective president, than his rival. </s> |
2,160 | <s>[INST] But Mrs Fernandez Meijide, 67 and [/INST] with dark bags under her eyes, is a strong figure too. </s> |
2,161 | <s>[INST] Her personal history and outspoken style have won her [/INST] widespread trust, and project a sense of mission that could bring a large turnout in her favour. </s> |
2,162 | <s>[INST] Long a professor of French, she became a full-time human-rights activist after [/INST] her son was taken off in 1976 by the security forces of the then military regime, never to be seen again. </s> |
2,163 | <s>[INST] After the last military junta collapsed in 1983, [/INST] she helped to lead President Raul Alfonsin's commission to probe the thousands of civilian "disappearances". </s> |
2,164 | <s>[INST] Then she moved into a political [/INST] career, and was eventually elected to Congress in 1993. </s> |
2,165 | <s>[INST] While Mr de la Rua finds most of his support in the [/INST] metropolitan areas of Buenos Aires and Cordoba, Mrs Fernandez Meijide has tirelessly campaigned from one end of the country to the other. </s> |
2,166 | <s>[INST] Mr de la Rua has shown political skill recently, saying he [/INST] would support an anticorruption investigation of an out-ofpower Mr Menem, thus stealing one of Mrs Fernandez Meijide's main themes. </s> |
2,167 | <s>[INST] Argentina's economy has survived the global turmoil better [/INST] than have some others in the region, and voters do not seem eager for change. </s> |
2,168 | <s>[INST] Last month Mr de la Rua suggested he [/INST] would pick as his economy minister Ricardo Lopez Murphy, a laisserfaire economist and keen budget-balancer. </s> |
2,169 | <s>[INST] Mrs Fernandez Meijide quickly retorted, saying Mr [/INST] Lopez Murphy would be even worse than the current economy minister, Roque Fernandez. </s> |
2,170 | <s>[INST] She prefers Jose Luis Machinea, a former central-bank president and now head of the [/INST] Alliance's economic team, who places less emphasis on fiscal balance and thinks trade barriers can justifiably be raised in times of crisis to protect the economy. </s> |
2,171 | <s>[INST] And it raises the chances that, if Mr de la Rua wins the [/INST] candidacy, the freemarket Mr Menem-himself barred by the constitution from running again next year-may see his economic policies prevail, even if his party loses. </s> |
2,172 | <s>[INST] ___ Document 309 of 400 The Americas: Goodwill--and [/INST] a group of islands Author: Anonymous Publication info: The Economist 349.8091 (Oct 24, 1998): 35. </s> |
2,173 | <s>[INST] accountid=28034 Abstract: When he arrives in Britain on [/INST] October 27, Carlos Menem will be the first Argentine president officially there since the 1960s. </s> |
2,174 | <s>[INST] Goodwill has grown vastly since the [/INST] two countries went to war over the Falkland Islands in 1982. </s> |
2,175 | <s>[INST] Menem meets with Queen Elizabeth and her prime minister, [/INST] Tony Blair, and many of his ministers - notably those of defense, economy, foreign affairs and education. </s> |
2,176 | <s>[INST] The themes will be [/INST] reconciliation and the strengthening of economic links. </s> |
2,177 | <s>[INST] Britain refuses to negotiate, against [/INST] the urging of the UN's decolinisation committee. </s> |
2,178 | <s>[INST] Full text: Headnote Argentina and Britain WHEN he arrives in [/INST] Britain on October 27th, Carlos Menem will be the first Argentine president officially there since the 1960s. </s> |
2,179 | <s>[INST] Goodwill has grown vastly since the two countries [/INST] went to war over the Falklands Islands (to Argentines, the Malvinas) in 1982. </s> |
2,180 | <s>[INST] But all kiss-and-make-up it is not-and [/INST] Argentina's Congress has not recently been helping that way. </s> |
2,181 | <s>[INST] Few Britons take much note of [/INST] Argentina, except on the football field and at "Evita". </s> |
2,182 | <s>[INST] But there has long [/INST] been a love-hate relationship the other way. </s> |
2,183 | <s>[INST] For Britons, the Falklands war was [/INST] a nasty incident, successfully concluded, that happened 16 years ago. </s> |
2,184 | <s>[INST] For Argentines, British rule in the islands [/INST] is a long-standing, unhealed injury, a theft of their national territory. </s> |
2,185 | <s>[INST] And the war, which claimed [/INST] over 1,000 lives, remains a vivid and bitter memory. </s> |
2,186 | <s>[INST] Yet the long relationship between the [/INST] two countries ensures that resentment in Argentina is mixed with fascination. </s> |
2,187 | <s>[INST] Argentina owes much to British capital and British settlers, not least its 19th-century railways [/INST] and the port of Buenos Aires (and warships, from those of that day to the-now mothballed-aircraft carrier that the British chose not to go after in 1982). </s> |
2,188 | <s>[INST] It owes football too, and today's [/INST] regular victories over the one-time masters arouse immense pride. </s> |
2,189 | <s>[INST] British-taught rugby football, British culture in [/INST] general and (more widely) British pop-groups, all have their fans. </s> |
2,190 | <s>[INST] It is against this background-barely perceived in [/INST] Britain, alive in Argentinathat Mr Menem sets off for an actionpacked five-day visit. </s> |
2,191 | <s>[INST] While he meets Queen Elizabeth and her prime minister, Tony [/INST] Blair, many of his ministers-notably those of defence, economy, foreign affairs and education-will meet their British counterparts. </s> |
2,192 | <s>[INST] A service at St Paul's cathedral in London, attended [/INST] by the heads of Argentina's armed forces and veterans from both sides, will emphasise reconciliation. </s> |
2,193 | <s>[INST] Some 70 leading Argentine business people will [/INST] be strengthening economic links, the other main theme of the visit. </s> |
2,194 | <s>[INST] Britain is the third largest foreign [/INST] investor in Argentina, after the United States and Spain. </s> |
2,195 | <s>[INST] The two countries are close in [/INST] international affairs, both good allies of the United States. </s> |
2,196 | <s>[INST] Yet Britain still has an arms embargo [/INST] against Argentina-a "comic" one, says the foreign minister, Guido Di Tella. </s> |
2,197 | <s>[INST] Argentines hope it will be ended during the [/INST] visit, giving way to the export licences that Britain uses for other countries. </s> |
2,198 | <s>[INST] The two countries agreed in 1989 to [/INST] sort out practical issues without prejudice to either's claim to sovereignty. </s> |
2,199 | <s>[INST] That brought a deal on licensing for oil exploration [/INST] in a sea area between the islands and the mainland; another is yet to come on fisheries. </s> |
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