A BASKET FULL OF CHILEAN EASTER EGGS - Otherwise known as Huevadas

“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