A sign shows US President Barack Obama during a protest against job cuts and high interest rates outside the central bank in Sao Paulo on Jan. 21, 2009. Brazil's Labor Ministry says the country lost 654,000 jobs in December as the international financial crisis slammed Latin America's largest economy. (AP)
President Barack Obama got his first economic intelligence briefing last week from new CIA chief Leon Panetta. And in the midst of all the talk about global crisis fueling global unrest, Latin America got a special mention.
Eastern Europe has had violent protests. Ukraine is on the global watch list. But Panetta told reporters he has been warned of economic instability in Latin America, and he named names: Argentina, Venezuela, Ecuador. Is he right?
This hour, On Point: We’ll look at how the global economic meltdown is hitting Latin America.
You can join the conversation. Have you been following the crisis internationally? What are you hearing from friends and family to the south?
-Tom Ashbrook
Guests:
Joining us from Fairfax, Virginia, is Joby Warrick, intelligence reporter for The Washington Post. He has been covering the security risks related to the global economic downturn, and reported last week on the president’s first economic intelligence briefing.
Joining us from Bogota, Colombia, is Ricardo Avila, editor-in-chief of Portafolio, a daily financial paper published in Colombia. He was chief of staff for the Organization of American States in Washington from 1996 to 2000 and served as Colombia’s deputy foreign affairs minister in 1992.
And from Toronto is John Price, managing director for business intelligence at Kroll Associates. Based in Miami, he has been watching Latin American markets and economies for 16 years.
Tags: global economy, Latin America, national security
War on drugs and say no to drugs !!! did not work , its seems worse ……When are we going to learn that drug addicts are sick people who need help? in order to get rid of the drug cartel in Latin American , the world and in the US, we need to be more humane ,clinics need to directly distribute heroin in order to cut down directly on the criminal activities including human trafficking …
Posted by R.M., on March 2nd, 2009 at 10:42 am ESTIf I remember right Venezuela had the most economic growth in Latin America with most of it outside the oil sector. Much of this has been due to the investment the government has put into its people, education, health care etc.
Posted by Charlie Welch, on March 2nd, 2009 at 10:42 am EST[...] Latin America And The Global Crisis » President Obama got his first economic intelligence briefing last week from new CIA chief Leon Panetta. And in the midst of all the talk about global crisis fueling global unrest, Latin America got a special mention. Is he right? Today, On Point takes a look at how the global economic meltdown is hitting Latin America. Tags: AIG, bailout, DHL, Dow, Latin America, Leon Panetta, Project Dropout, stocks, unemployment Your thoughts… [...]
Posted by Monday Mid-Day: Dow Lowest Since ‘97; AIG Gets Fourth Bailout - wbur.org: The Bottom Line, on March 2nd, 2009 at 12:21 pm ESTI agree completely with the third person that called. I think his name was Gram.
Posted by LOV, on March 2nd, 2009 at 12:49 pm ESTThe two guests seem to have personal preferences in reference to particualr countries. Of course Ricardo Avila, because he is from Colombia thinks that his country is heaven.
Not a good pair of guests in my opinion.
02/27/2009
CONNECTING THE DOTS
Item, the drug cartel wars in Mexico
Item, the mutiny of border guards in BenglaDesh
Item, take over of Swat Valley in Pakistan by the fundamentalists
Item, coca production in Columbia, Bolivia, poppy production in Afghanistan
So what do all these have in common? everything, actually they are all the same one problem, though some may see one or another angle to the problems, many, however, fail to see the common threads. But first we need to remember that ALL humans are mostly the same, even the educated and the rich have the same basic human traits of the rest, the uneducated and the poor, And the second, if the first is true, which it is, what can happen over there can also happen here, we are not immune because we are white, black, educated or or richer or Americans, what is happening over there can also happen here. As I had mentioned in my radio interview, back in march 2005, the problem with Mexico is not that they don’t have money, especially with all the oil revenues, it was that the rich were hoarding money and corrupting the politics and justice systems.
Previously I have also said that if you corrupt the system for your gain, then you, yourself, also suffer the consequences of a corrupt system. In poor countries it is easy to bribe someone, but when bribery becomes the norm then more and more monies are required to corrupt someone, unless, the people are so poor that they can still be bought off cheaply. Mexican rich and the middle class are no longer safe. Safe heavens for the rich become smaller as the poverty and the corruption rises.
Unless you have been living in a bubble, you know what is happening in these various countries I have used in my example above, and just in case you do live in a bubble, here is some information. In Mexico drug lords have a war going on , not just between themselves, but also against the police and the army, kidnappings, murders, torture, assassinations are becoming the norm and no one is safe. Columbia and Bolivia have insurgencies tied to the drug trade, they have the same problems with corruption. In Bengla Desh, the border guards had a mutiny and they killed or kidnapped one hundred forty of their own officers, over seventy corpses have been discovered, seventy are still missing. And in Pakistan the government relinquished the control of the Swat Valley to the radical Islamists. Sway Valley used to be a summer heaven for the rich, where the poor population was used as virtual slaves for the summer months by the rich vacationers. Well ok, not as virtual slaves , but the poor people of Swat were just very happy to serve the vacationing for what ever money they could earn.
Posted by MOHAMMED N. RAZAVI, on March 2nd, 2009 at 3:05 pm ESTI agree that Graham seemed to bring a broader voice to this discussion, although I think it unfortunate that he cast the disagreement in terms of Cold War thinking. If the last several months and years have shown us anything, it should be that the financial know-it-alls are often not very wise. There are more smart, creative, and visionary people who should have been brought into this discussion.
Posted by Cathy, on March 2nd, 2009 at 9:13 pm ESTAbsolutely disgusting! I cannot believe that ‘liberals’ look to this garbage for news and opinion. This discussion WAS reminiscent of cold-war rhetoric; I completely agree with one of your callers. Also the moment your last caller mentioned the Bolivian revolution he was cut short. Tom- you should be ashamed of yourself, really. I can’t even attempt to sleep right now, I am too disgusted.
Posted by Michael, on March 2nd, 2009 at 10:04 pm EST*bolivarian
Posted by Michael, on March 2nd, 2009 at 10:07 pm ESTAhh… the liberal left and their love affair with social revolution.
They are all welcomed to join Lori in her jail cell in Peru.
Posted by Romanticist, on March 12th, 2009 at 10:40 am EDT