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G7 countries lack Unasur “imagination and audacity” to overcome current crisis

Tuesday, September 13th 2011 - 05:33 UTC
Full article 6 comments

The Secretary-General of the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR), Colombian María Emma Mejía said that the region has shown “more imagination and audacity in the measures applied” than G7 countries, which are debating how to get out of the mess they are currently undergoing. Read full article

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  • briton

    So now Unsure, is now sure, they are correct, and the rest is wrong,
    Well only time will prove this point,
    Our countries that are part of G20 and BRIC,k had more imagination and audacity in other words, they use other peoples mortar to fill their gaps, ?

    Sep 13th, 2011 - 07:47 pm - Link - Report abuse 0
  • GeoffWard2

    I may have this wrong, but I believe that the South American national economies were less affected by the global crisis because:

    1. they were not yet sufficiently global;

    2. because they had economies with less general credit and mortgage credit;

    3. with a greater proportion on subsistence personal conditions;

    4. with low proportional commitment to military expenditure;

    5. with low overseas aid budgets but nett receivers of overseas aid;

    6. with population levels not yet at carrying capacity, allowing surplus food to be exported for profit; and,

    7. fortunately and fortuitously, with billions of tones of exploitable and exportable raw materials able to be traded at a profit.

    I depart from Unasur’s assertion that these conditions (above) were a well thought-out and considered strategy to enable South America to weather a global crisis.

    They were simply the conditions that pertained at that time, and conditions that offered advantage during a time of disrupted economies in the developed world.

    Sep 13th, 2011 - 08:20 pm - Link - Report abuse 0
  • Forgetit87

    The East and Southeast Asian economies performed better than the West: and they're global economies, at least in the sense that exports account for a large part of GDP. They also have access to cheap credit in the international markets. The same one couldn't say of the UK or the US: they're not globalized economies, since exports account for a small percentage of GDP (less than 15%). Still they were hit hard by the crisis, weren't they?

    There were two reasons Latam (and Asia) were less affected: 1 - because the epicenter of the crisis lied elsewhere; 2 - because they had more ground to stimulate their economies (lower levels of external debt and moderate levels of public debt, and more grounds to introduce a looser monetary policy; cf. China's succesful attempt to compensate for reduced exports by means of investment and housing); 3 - and because the financial sector doesn't compose such a large part of their economies as is the case in the UK and the US. Notice that European countries that relie less on speculative activities (Germany, Sweden) did better than the UK. These are structural differences; they don't pertain to time alone. Sure that doesn't mean their situation hasn't been affected by the crisis (see China's explosion in local public debt since the 2008 crisis, which will considerably reduce its capacity to stimulate the economy in face of a looming global crisis).

    As to raw resources, I have once and again noticed that most S. American countries have current account deficits. That means the external sector doesn't add to growth in these economies. Your suggestion on food exports also sounds weird, specially your suggestion that they are linked to demographic situation. Why didn't the US or Canda benefit from this? Don't they also have a powerful farming sector? The funny thing is that the economy most reliant on raw resources (Venezuela) was the one that suffered the most from the crisis: and it had previously been growing at fast rates.

    Sep 13th, 2011 - 09:02 pm - Link - Report abuse 0
  • geo

    [] -2 , [] -3

    Aint.... !!

    Sep 14th, 2011 - 09:22 am - Link - Report abuse 0
  • GeoffWard2

    “Imagination and Audacity” . . . . Hmmmm

    Is Argentina's 'dual inflation figures' (i official, ii real) an imaginative or an audacious strategy to weather the world financial storm?
    Certainly 'default' is a strategy that might work for a few moments.
    'Austertity programmes'? Not part of the SA Plan.

    1. “to have closer links with Brazil” Hmmm
    2. “and to trade with local currency” Hmmm
    3. “Reserve Fund” Not successful at halting big foreign cash injections of hot money ('Speculative Capital') winning big returns that don't stay in SA.
    4. “Latin America learned from the past.” Hmmm, defaults looming.

    Hmmm,
    show me the 'Imagination',
    show me the 'Audacity',
    otherwise I will show you a Colombian María Emma Mejía, Secretary General of embryonic Unasur, who is puffing it up big time - or as some people say ”All mouth and no trousers”.

    Sep 14th, 2011 - 05:36 pm - Link - Report abuse 0
  • briton

    surley the real reason argentina does not want to leave to protection of brazil,
    is the same as all children who dont want to leave mummys side,
    is love, comfort protection, safety,
    but one day argentina will have to learn to grow up, wont she,

    Sep 14th, 2011 - 06:50 pm - Link - Report abuse 0

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