Prof. Barry Eichengreen from UC Berkley discusses in this video the current crisis. Very recommend!
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Some time ago, I’ve published the analysis of Bird and Fortune about the financial crash. Here we go with some more!
Popularity: 30% [?]
Read the big four to know capital’s fate US presidents, in confronting crises, have often let it be known that they are serious students of history and biography. George W. Bush, an unusually voracious late-night reader, devours books on the lives of Great Men, including his hero Winston Churchill, (who in turn liked to read about his illustrious ancestor, Marlborough). Barack Obama looks to biographies of Abraham Lincoln for inspiration. Given the enormity of the banking, credit and trade crisis, might it be worth suggesting to Mr Obama and his fellow leaders that they study the writings of the greatest of the world’s political economists, instead? After all, we may be in such a grim economic condition that the clever direction of budgets is a greater attribute of leadership than the stout direction of battleships. Since today’s leaders cannot possibly read all the major works of political economy, let us help them by selecting four of the greatest names from Robert Heilbroner’s classic collection The Worldly Philosophers : The Lives, Times, and Ideas of the Great Economic Thinkers: Adam Smith, the virtual founder of the discipline and early apostle of free trade; Karl Marx, that penetrating critic of the foibles of capitalism, and less reliable predictor of its “inevit-able” collapse; Joseph Schumpeter, the brilliant and unorthodox Austrian who was certainly no foe of the capitalist system but warned of its inherent volatilities (its “perennial gale of creative destruction”); and that great brain, John Maynard Keynes, who spent the second half of his astonishing career seeking to find policies to rescue the same temperamental free-market order from crashing to the ground. Perhaps the supremely gifted playwright Tom Stoppard could put those four savants on stage and offer an imaginary weekend-long quadrilateral discourse among them about the future of capitalism. Failing such a creative work, what might we imagine the four great political economists would say about our present economic crisis? Smith, one imagines, would claim that he had never advocated total laissez faire, was appalled at how sub-prime loans to fiscally insecure people contradicted his devotion to moral economy, and was concerned at the deficit spending proposed by many governments. Marx would still be badly bruised by learning of Lenin and Stalin’s perversion of his communistic theories, and by the post-1989 withering-away of most of the world’s socialist economies; yet he might still feel pleasure at modern financial capitalism foundering on its contradictions. The austere Schumpeter, by contrast, might be lecturing us to swallow another decade of serious depression before a newer, leaner form of capitalism emerged again, though with lots of evidence of severe gale-damage (the end of the US car industry, the decline of the City of London, perhaps) in its wake. And Keynes? My own guess is that he would not be very happy at today’s state of affairs. He might (only might) regard it as fine that he was quoted or misquoted millions of times in today’s media, but one suspects that he would be uneasy at parts of Mr Obama’s deficit-spending scheme: at the US Treasury’s proposal to allocate more money to buying bad debts and rescuing bad banks than investing in job creation; at a Washington spending spree that seems unco-ordinated with those of Britain, Japan, China and the rest; and, most unsettling of all, at the fact that no one is asking who will purchase the $1,750bn of US Treasuries to be offered to the market this year – will it be the east Asian quartet, China, Japan, Taiwan and South Korea (all with their own catastrophic collapses in production), the uneasy Arab states (yes, but to perhaps one-tenth of what is needed), or the near-bankrupt European and South American states? Good luck! If that colossal amount of paper is bought this year, who will have ready funds to purchase the Treasury flotations of 2010, then 2011, as the US plunges into levels of indebtedness that could make Philip II of Spain’s record seem austere by comparison? In the larger sense, of course, all four of our philosophers would be correct. Capitalism – our ability to buy and sell, move money around as we wish, and to turn a profit by doing so – is in deep trouble. No doubt Smith, as he watches the collapse of Iceland and the Irish travails, is reconsidering his aphorism that little else is needed to create a prosperous state than “peace, easy taxes and tolerable administration of justice” – that did not work this time. By contrast, rumbles of satisfaction might be heard coming from Marx’s grave in Highgate cemetery, causing excitement for the still-considerable numbers of Chinese visitors. Meanwhile, Schumpeter will have due cause to mutter: “This is not a surprise, really.” As for Keynes, we might imagine him sipping tea with Wittgenstein at Grantchester meadows, pursing his lips at the incapacity of merely normal human beings to get things right: at our tendency to excessive optimism, our blindness to the signs of economic over-heating, our proneness to panic – and our need, every so often, to turn to clever men like himself to put the shattered Humpty-Dumpty of international capitalism back together again. All these political economists instinctively recognised that the triumph of free-market forces – with the consequent elimination of older social contracts, the downgrading of the state over the individual, the end of restraints upon usury – would not only bring greater wealth to many but could also produce significant, possibly unintended consequences that would ripple through entire societies. Laissez faire, laissez aller was not only a call to those chafing under medieval, hierarchical constraints; it was also a call to unbind Prometheus. Logically, it both freed you from the chains of a pre-market age, and freed you to the risks of financial and social disaster. In the place of Augustinian rules came Bernie Madoff opportunities. By the same instinctive reasoning, most sensible governments since Smith’s time have taken precautions against citizens’ totally unrestricted pursuit of private advantage. States have invoked the needs of national security (therefore you must protect certain industries, even if that is uneconomic), the desire for social stability (therefore do not allow 1 per cent of the population to own 99 per cent of its wealth and thus provoke civil riot), and the common sense of spending upon public goods (therefore invest in highways, schools and fire-brigades). In fact, with the exception of the few absurdly communist states such as North Korea, all of today’s many political economies lie along a recognisable spectrum of more-free-market versus less-free-market arrangements. But what has happened over the past decade or more is that many governments let down their guard and allowed nimble, profit-seeking individuals, banks, insurance companies and hedge funds much greater scope to create new investment schemes, leverage more and more capital on the basis of increasingly thin real resources and widen dramatically the pool of gullible victims (silly, under-earning individuals, hopeful not-for-profits, Jewish charities, friends of a friend of an investment manager, the list is long), thereby creating our own era’s spectacular equivalent of the South Sea Bubble. As in all such gigantic credit “busts”, many millions more people – the innocent as well as the foolish – will be hurt than the snake-oil salesmen and loan managers who perpetrated these so-called “wealth creation” schemes. What, then, is capitalism’s future? Our current, damaged system is not, despite Marx’s hopes, to be replaced by a totally egalitarian, communist society (such arrangements might be there in life after death). Our future political economy will probably not be one in which Smith or his present-day disciples could find much comfort: there will be a higher-than-welcome degree of government interference in “the market”, somewhat larger taxes and heavy public disapprobation of the profit principle in general. Schumpeter and Keynes, one suspects, will feel rather more at home with our new post-excess neocapitalist political economy. It will be a system where the animal spirits of the market will be closely watched (and tamed) by a variety of national and international zookeepers – a taming of which the great bulk of the spectators will heartily approve – but there will be no ritual murder of the free-enterprise principle, even if we have to plunge further into depression for the next years. Homus Economicus will take a horrible beating. But capitalism, in modified form, will not disappear. Like democracy, it has serious flaws – but, just as one find faults with democracy, the critics of capitalism will discover that all other systems are worse. Political economy tells us so. The writer is professor of history and director of International Security Studies at Yale University, is the author/editor of 19 books, including The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers (Vintage). He is writing an operational history of the second world war. To join the debate go to www.ft.com/capitalismblog Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2009 Popularity: 36% [?] When I wrote back in 2006 (click here) that Latvia would bankrupt because of the irresponsable economic policies, or better, because of the lack of any logic economic policy, everybody told me that I was wrong. They said that Latvia would forever face a strong and sustainable growth based on speculation with real estate actives and consumption of durable goods, while Riga would turn to be the most important financial centre in Northern Europe, dealing with the money from Russia and the CIS. If by now this may be seen as an irreal assumption, some months ago it wasn’t. We were even near to adopt the euro! What happened? Until 2007, Latvia was fulfilling all the Maastricht criteria with the exception of inflation. Although facing a process of unsustainable development that could be characterised by underdevelopment, if the Latvian authorities had regulated the expansion of the monetary base, most probably Latvia’s currency would be the euro by now. After joining the European Union, Latvia’s faced a restructurisation of its economy, due to changes of strategies of the actors of the financial sector. As consequence of the process of market seeking, mostly by Scandinavian banks, in conjunction with the low level of indebtedness of the private economic agents, Latvia started to finance its economic growth with external savings. The result, as well discussed in the economic literature, was the development of a speculative bubble in real estate assets and an increase of the consumption of durable goods. As Latvia is a small country, the effect was the restructurisation of the economy, in such a way that nearly 60% of the GDP became dependent of speculation with real estate actives, consumption of durable goods, financial intermediation and transports, four non-sustainable sectors in the medium and long run. Although the euro always has been an objective of the authorities, and the rhetoric of its adoption was always present in official statements, the result of the economic policies of the last years show that these policies weren’t effective. This may be explained by the lack of competence of the politicians, the authorities and the government personal to deal with macroeconomic issues, which by its time is explained by the lack of pragmatism with the lack of knowledge of economics as subject. As result, Latvia had to ask for help to the IMF and to the European Comission, as to other European countries as, for example, Estonia, Poland and the Czech Republic. In order to concede the help, the consortium formed by the institutions and countries asked for some conditions, which are determining Latvia’s economic policies. The fulfilment of the Maastricht criteria, the sooner the better is considered as one of the main presuppositions to the success of the process of adjustment. Considering that the process of economic decision became subordinated to the rules of the request for standby arrangement, the policies leading to the fulfilment of the Maastricht criteria are determined independently of the internal political process. Albeit the politicians tried to not fulfil the target of a budget deficit of -4,9%, instead trying to negotiate with the IMG a budget deficit of about 7,0% of the GDP, the result of the negotiations between Latvia and the IMF which ended 30 March 2009 was a public expression of dissatisfaction by the IMF, as the promise of the Ministry of Finance to make a new budget until June 2009. As the collection of taxes is smaller than predicted when forecasting the budget, more cuts are expected to occur, mainly in wages. As result, a period of political instability is expected to the next months, what may interfere in the fulfilment of the plan, therefore in the adoption of the euro. The definition of the Maastricht criteria indicators are based on the presupposition that countries fulfilling then are less vulnerable to structural problems and, most important to a monetary union, to inflation. However, although the criteria has turned into a dogma somehow, the analysis of other indicators, as well of other subjective factors is necessary. Such a small country in economic terms as Latvia represents no risk to the stability of the EMU. Even if Latvia doesn’t fulfil any of the Maastricht criteria, the impact of inflation or any other desiquilibrium in Latvia to the EMU is completely irrelevant, while the same time, the benefits to the country are enormous. The European Central Bank and the European Commission should go beyond the idea that one model is applicable to all countries. Also, should take in consideration the costs in terms of political and economic instability to the union, of a(some) country(ies) suffering from chronic underdevelopment. In a scenario of global crisis, it’s clear that the economic model of the last forty years is wrong. As the main objective of economics as discipline is to understand how to provide a better life for people, maybe it’s time to break some dogmas and to think again in terms of economic development. Popularity: 15% [?] As today is Friday, let’s relax! Popularity: 66% [?] So, there is a crisis. So what? Quite natural, after the economic orgy of the last years, to the world to experiment a hangover. However, to some of the leading intellectuals of economics, it isn’t and they’re still searching for traditional concepts to explain what happened. “But the models showed that…” one may cry. Other may say that economic liberalism always would result in a Pareto Optimum, thus, the market never fails. Reality is showing that things are different. And religious approaches are not adequate This year is a mark on Economics as discipline, because it’s the year of the beginning of the Marginalist Revolution, the theoretical basis of the understanding of the economic reality by the nowadays mainstream. When Jevons (picture at the right) published his Theory of Political Economy, he was not just discussing the validity of labour as determinant of value, but also founding what now is called Economic Science. Although his book’s title has “Political Economy” as a part of it, Jevons putted Politics, History, Sociology, Anthropology, Philosophy, Psychology, among other disciplines, aside the economic discussion. His idea was that the economic process was subordinated to universal laws, which could be represented by mathematics and would be valid in all historical periods and under all circumstances. Jevons once has stated that without mathematics a discipline is not science. Menger, Marshall, Schmoller, only to cite a few, also helped to the establishment of the Economic Science. The basis of the Neoclassical/Marginalist approach is the economic liberalism of the classics, as Adam Smith and Stuart Mill, together with the notion of utility of Bentham. However, one thing that is very important and must be addressed is the fact that when the classics where discussing economic liberalism, they had a certain man in mind, the liberal man. This man is very well described in Smith’s “Theory of moral sentiments”, and his main features are propriety, prudence, and benevolence. Marshall himself stated that the solution to social problems would be chivalry, because it’s the obligation of a gentleman to help people in necessity. The point is that, although they were trying to establish “Economics” as a field of the positive science, their approach has a lot of philosophical presuppositions, a lot of then, fragile and questionable. Anyway, it succeed in falsifying the socioeconomic, by its reification through utilitarism, quantitative methods and ideological faith. This approach, the liberal-neoclassic, was the mainstream until the crisis of the 1930’s. When it was unable to explain and to deal with the Great Slump, Keynesianism became the mainstream approach. Keynes wanted to save capitalism from itself and not to destroy it or to promote socialism. Keynes understood that the level of economic activity under capitalism is cyclic, although he didn’t explicitly write a theory of economic cycles, which is implicit in The General Theory. What is also implicit is the notion that the level of intervention of the State must reflect the necessity of investment, in order to maintain the level of economic activity in full employment. With the stagflation of the 1960’s, Keynesianism started to be considered not the best theoretical approach, and the Chicago boys and Prof. Hayek became the new apostles of Economic Science. I’m calling them apostles, because of the fact that Keynes himself became one. Although I’m still thinking how to explain this phenomenon, it’s clear that Social Sciences (including Economics, of course, but also Sociology, Political Science, etc) as discipline and at the academic level is rather ideological and a matter of faith then logic and, more important, pragmatism. If Keynes was the apostle before the 1960’s, the Chicago boys and Prof. Hayek became the apostles of the last 40 years. If by the side of Economics other approaches than the Monetarist/Hayekian approach started to be considered only History of Economic Thought and scholars wanting to debate its validity or merely its problems, started to be more and more marginalised. “This is the true”, has been said openly, even by the fact that, as the University must be the opposite of a church, there are are no trues at University’s level, as it’s supposed to be a place opened for discussions and not a place to confirm the personal views of some social group. If Keynesianism was a religion, the Monetarist/Hayekian approach turned to be one, influencing, among other things, the methodology of Social Sciences as a hole, which started to use concepts and the methodology of Neoclassical Economics, limiting its scope. But so, what’s the relation of this debate with the current crisis? A lot. There are two points that must be addressed. The first one, about the end of the dollar/gold standard in 1971. In all History of capitalism, the financial system was limited, physically limited, first by the classic gold standard and, after the II World War, by the dollar/gold standard. With the end of the limits to the creation of money, there were no limits anymore to the disconnection between the financial system and the real system. In this way, the financial system became an independent body of the economic system, changing the way capitalism reproduces itself. The point here, the second one, is that the Neoliberal approach is unable to deal with these changes, because it is the result of the evolution of neoclassical economics, which by its side, bases itself in some unreal presuppositions as discussed above, besides the fact that it was developed in the 1940-50’s, before the establishment of Financial Capitalism as a mode of production. Although some people would say that the financial speculation was going to far, that the disconnection between the financial system and the real sector was very danger, nothing could be profoundly discussed, because it would go against the static ideas of the intelligentsia, in other words, against the Neoliberal Church. In this way, Casino Finance could not be regulated, because it’s against the ideas of economic liberalism, which are the same of Adam Smith, David Ricardo and the old classics. In other words, these presuppositions may fit the issues related to the old capitalism, where financial operations were still connected to the real sector. Financial Capitalism, as it’s something new, must be very well discussed and analysed under the light of new theoretical approaches. May be not so liberal. Maybe to assume that religious economic liberalism, rather than pragmatism, under Financial Capitalism and the globalised world, is not such a good idea. That if the real sector must be deregulated, the casino cannot. And so, why there is a crisis now? Simple. Because of the lack of pragmatism. I’m going to write about this issue again. Popularity: 10% [?]  It’s a long time since I posted my last comment. A lot of thing contributed to that. I’ve spent two months in Brazil, among other things. But for now on, I’m back. For this first post after my immense holidays, I’m not going to discuss economics or politics, but rather a problem is annoying me very much here in Latvia, at university’s level. I’m truly disappointed to see that there is an inverted Malthusian paradox concerning the students’ works: the level of plagiarism is growing exponentially, while its quality is decreasing arithmetically. The last two meetings I’ve participated at my Faculty were practically to discuss plagiarism of the students. It’s usual to hear justifications as “But I really wrote this paper!”, “I’m a honest person” (Yes, honest as the devil itself). I’ve seen people crying and assuring “But I wrote it”, even with original paper being shown to him/her. Psychography? No. The third eye!!!! I’ve been thinking about this issue for a long time, since the time I was teaching in Brazil. There was plagiarism there, but not as intense as I’m seeing nowadays here in Latvia. In Brazil plagiarism was mostly because of dishonesty than of lack of knowledge about the concept of plagiarism and the meaning and methodology of writing an academic paper. The good part is that I’ve found that in Latvia plagiarism is mostly due to the latter. This is the result of the combination of (1) the process of infantilisation of the younger generations – responsibility of the society itself who are treating young adults as children, including here the pedagogues, with (2) the consequent lack of responsibility and the “but I didn’t know” or “but it isn’t so serious” and (3) the social pressure that people must have a diploma to get a job. However, something is worrying me. More and more dishonesty is becoming the norm. In some cases, the students are so cynical that the situation turns to satirical. An example of a real dialogue I’ve observed: Lec.: Where did you find this literature? It isn’t… It’s not very far from LU central building, but it’s not there. Besides, what somehow disturbed me was this student facial expression, a mix of something defier with an arrogant look, like saying “I know what I did but You won’t get me, you moron!”. This happened with a colleague at our office. I was there. This issue is so serious, that it turned in a business. Sites as Atlants.lv commercialises papers, which are submitted by the students themselves to be downloaded by other students and used as their own papers. The student who uploaded the original text receives a share of the revenue of the sells of his/her work. The main problem is that plagiarism isn’t simply to cheat, what Brazilians tend to see as a signal of smartness, for example. Rather, it reflects the incapacity of an individual to express his/her own thoughts and power of argumentation, meaning he/she is functionally illiterate. By the same time, it represents a process of deconstruction of the old social values – as responsibility, honorability, honesty, perseverance, etc – to a more flexible notion of what is correct or not, in a postmodern and “If I made plagiarism but I’ve got a good mark, it’s OK.”. The problem is that it isn’t OK. It shows that this individual isn’t capable to deal with serious tasks because of moral underdevelopment. “I don’t have time to do this, so I’m going to do the easiest way. I’ll copy the job of others, presenting as mine. As nobody will check it, I’ll be considered very smart.”. Yes, but the point is that the person him/herself knows he/she is a fraud. Besides, everybody knows that sooner or later lies are revealed. What to do with these students? The first thing is to establish a moral code at the university; second, to increase the number of classes of methodology, strengthening the discussions about plagiarism. Third, to strength the penalty of making plagiarism: in the first time, the student would attend to a recycling process, in the form of some seminaries about plagiarism, and to write an essay about this theme; in the second time, simply to be expelled from the university. In informal discussions, it was said that maybe such measures would reduce ours students to a half. Maybe this is really a good idea. I’m more and more convinced that the university must be opened for anyone wanting to study; however, this doesn’t mean that everybody must obtain a diploma. Darwin. Popularity: 12% [?]  Yesterday I had a wonderful evening at my good friend Veiko’s place. Nice sauna, nice beer and, most important, nice and intelligent conversation. We discussed a lot about the Latvian economy and how the government and the economic agents still don’t want to face the reality. As my flight to London is about 2 hours late, I decided to use this time to share a little bit of our conversation. There was a presentation about the macroeconomic aspects of foreign portfolio investment in Latvia. Although the research was well done – it’s really a serious work, it’s more micro than macro, analysing mostly the achievements of the financial sector in Latvia. By the same side, the analysis of the influence of the influx of foreign portfolio investment in the structural deficit of the Payment Balance doesn’t differentiate the money the Scandinavians banks are sending to their branches from other kind of investments, as for example, money from Russia and the CIS.This is a very important question, because the money from Scandinavia, which is used to be given as cheap credit to Latvians, is the real factor financing the structural deficit of Latvia’ Payment; and because money from Russia and the CIS still suspicious. But what about the macroeconomic consequences of this influx of money? The first and most important one – that wasn’t remembered at all – is inflation. The influx of this money is resulting in an increase of the monetary basis, which for its time, results in a change on the expectations of the economic agents, resulting in inflation. There’s an article below discussing this issue. What kind of macroeconomic analysis doesn’t take inflation in consideration? So, in resume, what is the most significant effect of the influx of foreign portfolio investments in Latvia’s macroeconomy? Inflation. I could go further, dealing with the idea that this kind of investment, resulting in cheap credit to be landed by local banks, only results in an increase of the consumption of durable goods, worsening the deficit of the Payment Balance it’s helping to finance, in a circular movement. Also I could go further saying that the result is the increase of Latvia’s external debt (to not be confounded with the external debt of the government, but includes it), which is already about 135% of the GDP, one of the highest in the world. Not to mention that Latvia’s international reserves don’t exist anymore. In fact, the country already has liabilities of about 500 million lats. In practical terms, what’s the meaning of this? Very simple: with such a deteriorating state of things, no sane investor would put his/her money in Latvia. Even those wanting to launder money. But why? Because a country with such fragile and deteriorated macroeconomic structure has no capacity of re-payment of the money it received from foreign investors. It’s a question of time until the rating agencies to low even more Latvia’s rating. Of course when I said this would occur, two years ago, nobody agreed with me… However, what surprised me mostly is that people are still talking about Riga as becoming a regional financial centre. To be realistic, there are already two financial centres in the Baltic region: Stockholm and Helsinki. They rule the financial sector of the Baltic countries. Not to mention the influence of Moscow, as a financial centre. But what is a financial centre? A good definition is: “Financial centres are a few cities, distinguished by their higher order functions of control and coordination of global economic flows. These cities are pivotally arranged in a hierarchical network of trade, investment, financial and even government transactions, and are responsible for creating value up and down the global economic chain, with the presence of a net of correlated services (accounting/audit, specialised lawyers, etc), giving support to the activities (for a more detailed analysis, in Latvian and about Latvia, see my and Raita Karnite’s book or, in English, see POON, Jessie (2003). Hierarchical tendencies of capital markets among international financial centers. Growth and Change, vol. 34, no. 02, Spring, pp. 135-156). Let’s be realistic… What’s the stock market of Latvia? Very small. What’s the role of securities and securitisation in Latvia, one of the most important and dynamic processes in the financial sphere nowadays? None. In the best, for now, Riga may be the centre of administrative coordination of the banking sectors of the Baltic States. That’s not to be a financial centre. Of course, Riga may be a financial centre, but there’s a lot of hard work to do. The first one is, to develop the economy. Quite obvious, but the guys still don’t get it. And, most important, they still don’t know how to do it. It’s just to watch the level of the economic debate at the government and public level. Surreal, as a Bosch’s painting. With the state of things in the Latvian macroeconomy, maybe as the Hell of Bosch’s “The Garden of Earthly Delights”. Post-Scrip: When I was in Vilnius wating for my flight to London, I received a call from my bank offering me the incredible opportunity to borrow Ls 400,00 immediately and without any questions. I answered “thank You, but I don’t need it”. The girl in the other side was somehow disappointed. Her mood was something like: “How it’s possible that you don’t need credit?”. “Yeap. I don’t need”. The conclusion is that with the natural fulfilment of the demand for credit the banks are entering in despair, as they are realising that the party is over. As I’m constantly saying, there’s still time to the banks and the government to change their economic strategy. However, I think that it will never happen without a crisis. Sad, because people will suffer. The leaders of the Latvian surrealistic economic school, as their sand castles will come down; mostly sad, because ordinary people will suffer. Who will decide? Private banks and the government. The problem is that they’re still partying. Big parties, horrible hangovers. Popularity: 9% [?]   Fidel resigned. He’s an old man wanting retirement. The international media is speculating that now more profound reforms are like to occur, privileging democracy, in other words, the market, as the link between “free market” and “democracy” is very strong nowadays. The notion that democracy (δημοκρατία) is the rule of the people is outdated. The term democracy nowadays should be understood as the rule of the economics, mainly of the financial market. Politicians that would hear their people, usually don’t, in a process of detachment of politics from the basis – the people they would be representing. To do so, to hear the voice of people, is to be populist, one of the most horrible sins in the contemporary world of politics. Instead, they hear the financial corporations, the economic conglomerates, defending only economic interests and forgetting the people, guarantying in this way to not be populists. People, when it’s not election time, sucks. They are wolves in lambs skin; dictators posing as democrats. Bush, Tony Blair (he lied to his own people to defend the participation of UK troops in Afghanistan and Iraq) are examples. The Latvian politicians with few exceptions are the same.The revolution in Cuba was against one of those wolves, Fulgencio Batista. In charge since 1930, Batista was everything but a democrat. He oppressed the Cuban people, had connections with the Mafia (he was a close friend of Meyer Lansky and Lucky Luciano) and was corrupt as one can be. His notion of economic development was to transform Cuba in some kind of Las Vegas. However, this man was considered by the USA a democrat and an ally. Crazy world. Maybe would be better to say, suitable world. Fidel wasn’t a democrat also. He didn’t respect the plurality of ideas and never gave opportunity to Cuban people express their dissatisfaction with the regime (the pse Anyway, Fidel’s step down symbolises the end of an era. An era where people still believed in social justice, fraternity and love. Cuba and Fidel, together with Che, represent to a lot of people the resistance against lovelessness, conventionalism and indifference, as some kind of icon. Even if they aren’t good examples of what they symbolises. The last field of resistance against the crude logic of the post-modern financiered world, which makes people more and more introspective, lonely and selfish. Times of lovelessness, conventionalism and indifference. Popularity: 10% [?] |
 
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