U.S. residents of Latin American descent should feel more at home in our country in the next few years, as we seem to be getting closer to the big government lawlessness they have migrated from.
Every time we travel to my parent’s native country of Argentina, I am shocked anew about the unbelievable scenarios people have to deal with every day. There is a lack of respect for the law, corruption and ultimately resignation on the part of the public. Everyone seems to just fend for themselves and if you are trying to make a decent living you will get no help at all from the government. There is really no infrastructure in place to encourage ethics in professional behavior. As a matter of fact, it’s almost purposely discouraged.
I just saw a sign that read: “The reasons for breaking the law are called excuses”. This is a public awareness campaign? Shouldn’t we know this?
For about a year now the government of President Christina Fernandez de Kirchner (Kirchner being the former President of Argentina – sort of like their own Bill and Hillary Clinton), has been in a fight to the death with the agricultural sector. As I understand it, Christina’s executive branch controls the export of all things agricultural, from grains to beef. When she negotiates pricing with any foreign purchaser, be it a country or private concerns, she also receives the funds for the sales and “retains” about 40% of it. This is not considered a tax – they call it a “retention fee” and on top of that they tax the remaining 60% before they pay the producers.
This all happens without any government aid or subsidies of any kind to the producers. The small producers are most affected because this “retention fee” is not incremental, so whereas large owners have infrastructure costs that are smaller in proportion to their output, the smaller owners are just totally at a disadvantage and many of them have not been able to sustain their output or keep their businesses.
Last year, they were so upset that they just plain stopped farming or producing beef. Furthermore, they let all their crops spoil and their meats go bad. My aunt told me rivers of milk were flowing to the gutters. They showed it on the news day after day. It broke her heart, especially when there are so many needy people in this country.
President Christina dug her high heels and said she would increase the “retention fee”, almost as if to punish them. Then all the distributors starting blocking roads and picketing. In short, it’s a mess, and now the country is in horrible shape because they have even less funds from exports than before.
Christina and her husband the ex-President are said to control most of the legislative branch through bribes and corruption.
Today I read in the newspaper that the government decided NOT to publish the main public information data compiled by the Department of Agriculture’s 24 regional offices on the country’s grain and beef production. They said if anyone wants it, they’ll just have to get it through other means. The only way to obtain this information is through partial data from private owners, and through the United States’ USDA reports that are gathered through satellite data and extrapolated to make the reports. But this is not accurate or complete.
OK – so this is public information, gathered and financed through taxpayer dollars, and the Argentinian executive branch, in its feud with the agricultural producers, decides that they are not going to share it, and there is no legal avenue to make them do it.
Mind you, this is supposed to be a democratic country.
Voting here is the law – people have to vote and get their documents stamped or they have to pay a fee. So everyone votes. But unfortunately, it is the responsibility of each candidate and party to make sure that they are represented with ballots in each town. Because there is so much fraud, and lack of funds, only the dominant parties have enough money to make sure that every little town all over Argentina has the necessary paperwork. It’s kind of like Chicago politics, where the aldermen that have been there for years have overflowing coffers due to all the bribes they take with every issued permit. It is always campaign season in Chicago, they say.
My 70-year old aunt stood in line for two hours to vote in the last regional election, and when she finally went in, none of her first three choices were represented and the volunteers told her she had to vote for someone else. She was so mad that she voted for the least likely to win not to give her vote to the incumbent candidate — the entrenched commissioner who owns half the town already. She got her document stamped.
We are traveling in the south of the country and when we got to the regional airport in Buenos Aires, we were greeted by four very well dressed young attractive Argentinians who handed us free newspapers. It looks like just the main paper, but the difference is that it’s a piece of propaganda paid for by the executive branch of the government. There are very few things that are free here, so people still accept it and read it as if it was real news.
The main newspaper is Clarin, which has been very critical of the Kirchners and they are the main source that exposes all the corruption and scandals. So as a response, the Kirchners have retained an army of publicists, writers, printers and handsome young kids to produce and distribute several pro-government papers. What the public does not realize, because everything is so weird here, is that while the country is falling apart, all these papers are being funded by their own tax dollars.
Another very strange thing here is that a few years ago, protesters started blocking major expressways at high traffic hours and the government was worthless in controlling these hooligans. Kirchner, who was President at the time, decided that if he put them all on a government payroll, they would stay home and not block streets. Seriously, Argentina is now paying millions of people a weekly salary of about 100 pesos NOT to go out and block traffic.
So guess what? They are now blocking traffic again because they want a raise. The claim they can’t live on 400 pesos a month. If they are going to stay home and not cause trouble, they need more money, and benefits.
We may have a lot of problems in the U.S.A. But I still believe we are one of the best countries in the world for individual rights and liberties. However, I see a trend towards more government intervention and controls – which is very scary to me – because I have seen it here in my parent’s country. It has been a long downward spiral from which there is no discernible way out. The bigger government gets, the more corruption and entrenched interests will prevail, the least control we the people will have of our future.
If you think there is inequality in the U.S. now, you ain’t seen nothing yet.