“It was the first thing that shocked me about Chile: people only work
because they have to, for the money. Nobody really sought success, or
was
passionate about what they were doing. If they find elsewhere a job
that
pays the same money for less work, they leave.”
Yoel Gutierrez, Cuban-born trainer of Chile’s Olympic athletes
The unworthy and ungrateful readership of my deceased Chilean
weeklies
supposedly enjoyed the Huevada de la Semana, which has also stopped.
However, as we are leading up to the Crucifixion of Our Lord later
this
week, I thought I would crucify a few Chileans (though I fear it will
not
save the world), and include some foreigners in the process too.
ECONOMIC HUEVADAS Because Chile is the only country in the world
where
every aspect of life is ordered by economists (or the Church), what
they
say is always headline news, and God knows they talk a lot, both in
and
out of government. Among very fierce competition, the winner of the
Golden
Egg competition is unanimously named as Central Bank president José
de
Gregorio. Of course, he did not comment about the OECD report pointing
out
Chile as having the most unequal education system among members, nor
that
Chilean adolescents were the region’s second highest cosumers of
cocaine,
but 90 % of them does not have even a basic working knowledge of
English,
hardly surprising when in a voluntary testing of 11,000 public sector
teachers, 36 % were found as incompetent. There is no explanation as
to
why the sale of cigarettes was up 13.3 % in the first quarter of 2011
either.
Here is a non-comprehensive selection of declarations made by the
laureate
since the beginning of the year:
-“We shall not submit monetary policy to exchange rate
considerations”
-“ We are surprised by the high level of consumer interest rates”. This
is
a perennial discovery, as if all astronomers died every few years and
their successors “rediscover” Halley’s Comet. Finance ministers and
Central bank presidents beat their breasts from time to time as to
why
with inflation and Central Bank intervention rates at around 5 %,
stores
charge from 30 to 150 % to customers. In a country where they cannot
even
calculate compound interest !
-“The intervention of the dollar was not meant to push it up, only to
relieve (sic) tensions”. Have you tried masturbation instead?
A very poor second comes Finance Minister Felipe Larrain in the
competition, though his single entry was of high quality: “ The cut
in
expenditure for 2011 is to help the poor and needy”. This reduction is
in
fact the most stupid economic measure taken by any Chilean government
in
years. In a year where the budget will be balanced, cutting U$ 750
million
is pointless. He was also “economical with the truth” , by initially
saying that it would apply only to current expenditure, such as
travelling, paper clips, entertainment and new cars, but when he
presented
the details (much later) it turned out to include a postponement of
the
recruitment of new Carabineros (supposedly a government priority),
freezing defence procurement and kicking forward the already behind
schedule new army headquarters. There are probably more such surprises
if
and when we see the full documents). How does all this helps the poor?
It
is all in the Codex Chicageum, which replaces the Bible in Chile. If
you
lower expenditure, you lower inflation so people have more money to
spend,
goes to theory. Tell that to the unemployed who were going to join
the
Carabineros or the building workers at army headquarters. Read the
whole
book next time you are at a US university. It DOES NOT apply if the
budget
is in balance.
Private sector economists also took part, and I shall single out as
consolation prize the pronunciation of Chicago Boy Francisco Rosende,
who
said that “extending maternity leave was a tax on employment”.
NON-ECONOMIC DECLARATIONS Of course, as I said that all aspects of
life
in the country were in the hands of a small coterie, there were other
themes too. One current hot debate is a government initiative to
improve
health of young people and fight obesity ( which has become
catastrophic,
particularly among women, most of whom now have bums the size of the
Hindenburg..a few spoonfuls of beans and they might fly). A law was
prepared banning the sale of junk food in and around educational
establishments. The business community, in typical Chilean fashion,
the
business community objected and started lning up its congressional
pet
dogs in defence of “free entreprise”. Forgotten were the “role models”
of
Scandinavia which had taken the bull by the horns on such matter,
with
very positive results.
That is what produced a declaration by senator “Spotted Dick”
(imagine
that for years this guy was a heartbeat away from becoming president
of
Chile. He described the uathorities as “Talibans who thought they
knew
better as to what people should do”. Considering the senator’s own
past
baggage, if I were him I would refrain on commenting. On
anything.
THE HUEVADA THAT NEVER WAS The self-promoting crook (she should have
married Segovia of the SEK) and former Prefect Jacqueline Van
Rysselberghe
was finally cornered into resigning, but she had barely left her
office
with the cardboard boxes containing the witch’s brew, that some wise
guy
started mentioning her as a possible replacement for her UDI
congressman
colleague Mr Lobos who died in a car accident. In Chile, parties
replace
any resigning or dying congress member at will without going through
a
by-election or a pre-appointed stand-in. However, common sense seems
to
have prevailed, and the idea abandoned. Talking of Mr Lobos, can
someone
explain to me why the first reports said he was not wearing his seat
belt
(his daughter riding next to him did, and survived), and then this
was
“corrected” by the police who declared that both occupants were
wearing
them?
DIVINE JUSTICE ON EARTH As some veteran readers know, in the early
90’s,
soon after my arrival in Chile, I was the victim of a theft, in fact
a
scam, committed by one Fernando Hurtado Lambert. He is the nephew of
Carlos Hurtado, who at the time was minister of Public Works in the
Aylwin
government, and his nephew carried out his scams (there were other
victims) from the offices of a construction design company owned by
his
minister uncle.
I lost over U$ 20,000 in the episode, with no possibility of redress as
no
press, lawyer, business organisation or consular authority would
touch
such an “honourable” family. In fact, one of them, a lawyer by the name
of
Sven Herlin Kaiser, brother in law of Fernando, rang and threatened
me
with unspecified dire consequences if I even told the story about
town.
Why am I bringing this up again? Because the Lord moves in mysterious
ways. The other day, Carlos Hurtado’s household was the subject of a
telephone scam ending up in around U$ 50,000 being stolen. I am
genuinely
sorry to say I did not organise it, though I would have been pleased to
do
so given half an opportunity.
NO CANNES, THANKS TO CHILEAN INDOLENCE In the past 14 years, at this
time, I would be starting making my bags to go to the Cannes Film
Festival. I did it as a serious hobby, to the extent that quite a few
people at the event started respecting me sufficiently to interview
me
about films etc..One year, I was even co-presenter of a Chile day, at
the
request of the festivalk organisers.
This was made possible because my sister and I had inherited a
penthouse
there, and it reduced the cost (which I entirely covered) of the trip.
I
reported for a number of Chilean media, which paid not a penny towards
the
benefit of having their own correspondent at what is, after the
Olympics
and World Cup, the world’s third largest mediatic event. It allowed me
to
be there, so each side benefitted, though I think the Chilean media
got
the better deal. Not that they were grateful. La Nacion, when it
existed
in printed form, basically ignored all material sent over the
week-end,
when all the interesting stuff takes place in Cannes. So exclusive
interviews that had taken days to set up would be wasted. El
Mostrador
last year decided to cover Cannes on its online video system frm
Santiago,
and did not even bother to tell me. I arrived in Cannes without anybody
to
report to. Only Chileans can be so pendejos, though I also have to
mention
that as one of only two or three people from Chile covering Cannes, I
was
never invited at the pre-festival gathering for the Chilean
delegation
(the rest all being paid by the taxpayer) given by the French Embassy
(nor
to nay other event at the said embassy, soit-dit en passant). .
Alas, financial needs forced us to sell the apartment, but I did not
lose
hope. By now, as I said, I was respected by the organisers, who
already
paid all expenses for El Mercurio to be there. I heard that La Tercera
was
not using its Paris stringer any more, so I hinted to the festival
press
office that if they could treat La Tercera with an invitation as they
did
El Mercurio, I could represent them. Though they did not give a firm
commitment, they were pretty positive in their reponse, and asked me
to
get a letter frm the paper appointing me as their correspondent. I
passed
it on to the power that be at La Tercera and waited, and waited, and
waited. I sent four chasers. Nothing, until 5 days before the process
closed, I was told that they had been “too busy”. My guess is that
they
decided to send osmeone else and did not consider it was the minimum
courtesy to let me know. Adios Cannes!
LINGUISTIC AND FACTUAL EGGS The website of the newly created and
already under its second incumbent, the Joint Chief of Staff, has,
like
all government departments, a list of staff, contract and consultancy
employees. They are an excellent osurce of information about
perosnnel
movements and related matters. Currently, the list of consultants
includes
one Ricardo Ibarra, whose job description is put as “labores de
extención(sic) docente”. He is thus involved in extra mural training
activities, which I hope do not include spelling.
I am not sure who owns the Citroen dealership in Chile, but they are
also
in dire need of syntax advice, as their publicity describes their
products
as “Créative Technologie”, supposedly in French and I am sure inspired
by
the 1980’s Audi slogan “Vorsprung Durch Technik”. The problem is that
in
French, you should write Technologie Créative in that order.
In one of the few occasions in my nearly 41 year career when I was
actually “dismissed”, the Stockholm Peace Research Institute SIPRI,
considered the standard reference work on military expenditure, took
umbrage at something I had written in one of my Chile weeklies (nothing
to
do with them, or Defence), and declared that they “could not be
associated
with me any more”. To the extent that I was not making any money out
of
it, and they did not even allow me to say publicly I worked for them,
It
was no big loss. A couple of weeks ago, they published their yearly
analysis, and the person responsible for working out Latin America,
even
thought she should give an interview, widely reported by the
international
press. This Argentine woman was obviously an expert. Citing the
reasons
for the fact that Brazil and Chile had the highes procurement
expenditure,
she referred to Chile as “wishing to project its power regionally”,
and
for good measure that “the Copper law has been abrogated”.
The morale of all this, coming on top of the super huevadas written by
the
IISS in London some years ago, again on Chilean procurement, is that
you
should never take a declaration, statement or analysis at face value
however supposedly prestigious the source is. And I am not just talking
on
military affairs.
HAVE A GOOD EASTER AND DO NOT PUT ALL YOUR EGGS IN THE SAME BASKET
