MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency
Chile's Bachelet waiting for the year to end: 2015 has been the worst in her political history
It has been a bad year, Chilean President Michelle Bachelet told a Santiago newspaper this week, admitting that corruption scandals have sapped confidence in the country's institutions while sparking a reform drive that should bear fruit going forward. Read full article
Comments
Disclaimer & comment rulesSome politicians shouldn't believe their own hype.
Dec 31st, 2015 - 10:36 am - Link - Report abuse 0She was doing so well after her first term.
Like all commies she could keep the thing going as long as the money rolled in.
Dec 31st, 2015 - 11:35 am - Link - Report abuse 0The price of copper tanked, as it does for various reasons, and that was that.
Incorrectly read the mind of the public, especially students, and you have the systemic problems to the fore.
Quite how the 1st January is going to to improve the reality as of now seems to be wishful thinking.
Vasquez, the president of Uruguay, was crying his eyes out about how hard he has had to 'work' the last nine months or so!
Well he wanted it, he did not foresee the brooding, malevolent, presence of 'No Money Pepe' in the congress stymieing everything he tries to do. And that by a member of his own coalition of the aptly nicknamed 'Broad Fraud'.
Oh diddums' to the children that 'rule' us. The lot of them need to grow up.
This would all be fixed if only the net taxpayers into the gov't were able to vote.
Dec 31st, 2015 - 12:37 pm - Link - Report abuse 0Don't pay taxes or get welfare no vote.
Few exceptions such as retired (paid in over lifetime) or military service.
Problems solved.
All over the world.
Why stop there?
Dec 31st, 2015 - 05:20 pm - Link - Report abuse 0Let's remove the vote from women..... then get rid of those pesky immigrants... perhaps we'll even have a property requirement.....
Let's keep going until only old white men can vote!
The problems of the US are not the problems of the world.
Shockingly enough I am in agreement with Yankeeboy. Partially.
Dec 31st, 2015 - 05:36 pm - Link - Report abuse 0I think that if after a period of 7 years in a row you have not contributed to the coffers, you should not be allowed to vote. That could be broken with one year of net contributions, so it is conceivable to do a 1-7-1-7- lifestyle.
But lifelong net takers should not vote. Exception would be veterans, people with congenital illness precluding them from work, obviously retired people, and stay-at-home mothers.
So my idea would not be particularly restrictive but would single out healthy working age males that just sit around and do nothing but surf the net all day insulting others in forums.
@5. “So my idea would not be particularly restrictive but would single out healthy working age males that just sit around and do nothing but surf the net all day insulting others in forums.” Like you! Now piss off!
Dec 31st, 2015 - 05:42 pm - Link - Report abuse 04. My plan is fair and based on logic. Again all you care about are your delicate PC feelings.
Dec 31st, 2015 - 08:09 pm - Link - Report abuse 0You are pathetic.
Skip,
Dec 31st, 2015 - 08:26 pm - Link - Report abuse 0I understand what YB and NOSTRILS are saying. Rather than singling out minorities - far better to to make it more general - only the acknowledged 'sensible' and 'important' people should vote, as they know what is best and will not 'waste' their votes or be led astray easily.
Bachelet's year wasn't nearly bad enough. If she and her party aren't thrown out of office soon, they will destroy all the gains Chile has made in the last forty years, and drag the country back into tyranny and poverty.
Dec 31st, 2015 - 09:07 pm - Link - Report abuse 0I was reading a Wall Street Journal article today, “Beached Blue Whale Rescued Off Chile Coast” - and I thought for a moment that Ballenet had gotten into trouble again.
Dec 31st, 2015 - 09:34 pm - Link - Report abuse 0I know. We should remove the vote from those Jews as well..... can't be trusted. And the Muslims..... they don't believe in democracy.
Jan 01st, 2016 - 02:22 am - Link - Report abuse 0Just restrict it to Christians..... but which flavour? Can't be those Catholics as they obey that foreign pope. How about we just create a belief system instead..... it has to be inclusive to encompass the entire society.... and patriotic.....
Yankeeboy you know that deep down you are quite pathetic. So don't try to project. For years your hatred of CFK has fuelled you after your experiences in Argentina. And now you're lost. You're sounding more and more idiotic by the day. Haha Nostrils is not only agreeing with you but actually fleshing out your ideas now.
How low you've become.
Supposedly you have some sort of genius IQ Yankeeboy but it's not much use if it is always held back by a bitter and traumatised personality. A genius shit shoveller still shovels shit.
Keep shovelling.
@3 Yankeeboy
Jan 01st, 2016 - 03:23 am - Link - Report abuse 0“This would all be fixed if only the net taxpayers into the gov't were able to vote.”
I don't see how this above statement is connected to a person's gender, ethnicity, or religion. Can you explain to me how your above suggestion implies an exclusion of :
1) women
2) immigrants
3) jews
4) muslims
5) catholics
Because it seems to me that your just arguing that anybody who just pays taxes can vote. Is that right?
I think also that you are fully aware that in today's definition of democracy, all citizens get to vote. You are just pointing out what you think is a real shortcoming of that current system, is that right?
@11 YB's views are abhorrent and a reflection of his personality. They should be challenged but we can all be grateful he has no power and can never inflict his narrow-minded, bigoted views on us. Thanks be to democracy for keeping power away from people like him.
Jan 01st, 2016 - 10:30 am - Link - Report abuse 0Yankeeboy just can't stand that white middle-ages men don't control everything.
Jan 01st, 2016 - 10:45 am - Link - Report abuse 0He's turning 50 and now realises that there are more younger people than there are people his age and older.
And they're doing what they want!!!
And he had his chance. Now he's got about a decade and half to keep shovelling then a decade and half to squeeze in all he never did.
All the while, younger people are already doing that. If only they weren't all doing what they wanted. Why, they're ruining everything. If only they weren't acting like bitter 50 year old white men.
YBs idea of restricting votes to net taxpayers is consistent with the intemperant views of ultra right wing US Republicans. The Republican Party is not just split but totally splintered as can be ready seen from the gormless bunch of loonies queuing up to be Presidential candidates. It was bad enough last time with Mit the mut, but Trump personifies perfectly why the Republican dilemma. Select a looney, fail to win the Presidency.
Jan 01st, 2016 - 10:53 am - Link - Report abuse 0There are many decent Republicans but the party has become the repository of intemperate fascist losers and thats why it will continue to fail.
@15 Quite right. I have friends across the political spectrum in the US and we should never assume all Republicans are like YB or Trump. It would be as ridiculous as assuming all Muslims are terrorists.
Jan 01st, 2016 - 12:03 pm - Link - Report abuse 0Bachelet's second term was effectively ruined by her stupid son taking that massive loan (with her full knowledge). She lost the trust of the people. Copper prices certainly are low but unlike most countries Chile 'ring-fenced' the extra revenue when copper prices were at an all-time high. They didn't just spend it or rely on it.
2015 was not a great year for a lot of countries including the U.S.
@13. “YB's views are abhorrent”. Why? On benefits for the last 20 years, why should you get the opportunity to vote yourself more benefits? That's a problem with the current system. Check out the success rate of parties promising more benefits. What I'd like to see is an end to political parties. Every representative to be “independent”. And, how about “sortition”?
Jan 01st, 2016 - 02:15 pm - Link - Report abuse 0@17 It is democracy but I was talking about YB's views in general. Starving the poor seems fine to him.
Jan 01st, 2016 - 02:58 pm - Link - Report abuse 0The price of justice is that it is better a guilty person goes free than an innocent is punished.
Jan 02nd, 2016 - 11:50 am - Link - Report abuse 0The price of social cohesion is that it is better that a freeloader gets welfare than a person in real need goes without.
I happily take slightly higher taxes and slightly higher government interference in the market for the benefits of helping those that truly need it.
I think our societies have evolved enough, are stable enough and are wealthy enough that this is the least we can do.
19 Skip
Jan 03rd, 2016 - 12:20 am - Link - Report abuse 0Nicely said.
@elaine..ok the givernment saved copper money. Did chilean businesses?? No. They have unsustainable dollar debt. Chile is lucky for jack $hit when argentina and brazil collapse.
Jan 03rd, 2016 - 01:26 am - Link - Report abuse 0There is another good reason why Ballenet might wish to forget about her many failures in 2015. All that rah-rah about reducing crime? (Chile is second only to Argentina in robbery rates in South America). One of the Santiago comunas had an increase in aggravated robbery (assault) of more than 50 percent over 2014, and other comunas with over 30 percent increases. While the tourism press is still picturing Santiago as low in violent crime, the actual numbers are showing that Ballenet's government has been a resounding failure in stemming the significant growth in criminal violence. It's not just assaults on persons: in the Araucanía region vehicle theft was up more than 40 percent over 2014. So it's more than just the corruption in the Ballenet government, but also the incompetence. One wonders if CFK and Ballenet are in some way related.
Jan 03rd, 2016 - 02:20 pm - Link - Report abuse 0@the french socialist and jewish queen are not related but their hatred for their countries and wealth is no coincidence
Jan 03rd, 2016 - 03:02 pm - Link - Report abuse 022 Marti,
Jan 03rd, 2016 - 06:53 pm - Link - Report abuse 0What about crime in Venezuela?
@24 The subject was Ballenet's problems in 2015. But Venezuela has its own problems, many of which Chile had in 1973 because of the Allende government.
Jan 03rd, 2016 - 07:50 pm - Link - Report abuse 0Not sure what to make of the UN numbers on crime reporting, but I noticed a 2013 report for Letrine America showing stats for reported forced-entry robbery of dwellings. Argentina was the unquestioned leader, with Costa Rica coming in second, something that doesn't fit the popular image but there is good reason to believe the numbers and suspend popular wisdom. Chile was third in overall Latam (but second place within South America). Then Nicaragua, Mexico, and Brazil. Venezuela didn't even figure in the worst countries for that type of robbery. Obviously there are other classes of violent crime, but under Ballenet's administration, Chile's rates of “robbery with violence” and “robbery of dwellings” do appear to be increasing .
25 Marti
Jan 03rd, 2016 - 09:04 pm - Link - Report abuse 0Sad to hear.
The impression I was getting was that Chile was bucking the trend of LATAM Republics, and demonstrating the integrity and Rule of Law that other LATAM nations are disregarding or unconcerned with.
@25 and 26 Certainly not my experience of Chile, though people tend towards living in apartments because they feel safer than in houses. I have heard many stories of Chileans taking everything not nailed down in hotels but have never witnessed it myself.
Jan 03rd, 2016 - 09:28 pm - Link - Report abuse 0Did anyone see the article of Chileans taking matters into their own hands and making a public arrest of a robber attempting to mug someone at knife-point in Santiago? They disarmed him, stripped him naked and tied him to a lamp post until the police arrived. Obviously filming it and posting it on social media.
Speaking of crime, and given the extended holiday Mercopress staff is taking, have you all been following the prison break in Argentina? What a murky story it is.
@26 - There is an interesting perception or perceptions promoted in the tourism literature about a presumed absence of crime in Chile, but just as so much of what you see in tourism and the likes of Lonely Planet, it's just so much chamullo. People from the US seem to be most taken in by the myth. I ran into one silly fellow from the US teaching at a little academy who ignorantly claimed that “there were no privately owned guns in Chile.” He was apparently extrapolating from the reports of a relatively low number of firearms related homicides in Chile and he could not comprehend the data that showed that there was about one privately held firearm in Chile for every 20 adults, when both legal and illegal weapons were considered. But then, there are so few 'muricans who are not smitten by the chamullo concerning that country. And thievery in Chile has not significantly improved since Darwin and FitzRoy first met the Yamana.
Jan 03rd, 2016 - 10:02 pm - Link - Report abuse 0@ 27 The case you mention of the thief tied to the post was only semi-naked and he was wrapped to the post in the sort of plastic used for wrapping boxes on pallets. As far as the taking of matters into their own hands in Chile, this is also becoming more common here in Argentina and the practice has made “linchear” and “linchamiento” (for lynching) household words now, sometimes but not always fatal. Not so much here in the south but some of the districts further north in the country now have posted warnings that thieves will be lynched. The argentos tend to be more appropriately brutal when their miscreants are caught en flagrante delito .
On the prison break: yes, definitely following that. The implications and allegations are the stuff of classic Peronist corruption affecting the jails and prisons, which will take forever to root out of the present systems. Kirchnerist Marcelo Mallo was arrested today in connection with the case. And the noose may be tightening on the Morsa himself: Aníbal Fernández.
@28 “And the noose may be tightening on the Morsa himself: Aníbal Fernández.”
Jan 03rd, 2016 - 10:16 pm - Link - Report abuse 0Up to his neck in it. You can tell he is losing power because people are freely talking about his criminal activities particularly his drugs operation. I am just hoping when his back is again the wall he takes Max down with him.
Another mystery to rival the Nisman case and that bombing. Wondering how many other unsolved crimes can be traced back to the last rottern administration, and whether the miscreants will ever be brought to court?
Jan 03rd, 2016 - 10:49 pm - Link - Report abuse 0@ 5 CapiTrollism_is_back!!
Jan 04th, 2016 - 12:53 am - Link - Report abuse 0No-one gives a shit what you think.
@29 and the jailbreak in Argentina in which The Walrus is implicated.....
Jan 04th, 2016 - 12:23 pm - Link - Report abuse 0Looks like 9 officials related to the police and prisons have been fired by the Bs As provincial governor, as suspects in aiding the fugitives. That includes the dismissal of the chief of Investigaciones de la Policía Bonaerense and the top two directors of prison from which the bad guys escaped. Seems as though the fugitives had stayed at the houses of known accomplices and the [corrupted police] just somehow managed to avoid not noticing.
As if Macri didn't have enough problems with the economy, he has a massive drug trafficking mafia that is connected to Kirchnerism and has infiltrated the police and prisons.
@32 Thanks, I am trying to keep up with developments. When you look at how they escaped it was pretty much a case of the prison officers unlocking the doors, wandering off for a mate break and coming back to exclaim 'look, the doors are open'. The three prisoners were moved to the medical wing. The number of officers on duty there was reduced to one. A car was a waiting etc. etc.
Jan 04th, 2016 - 01:29 pm - Link - Report abuse 0That the police are corrupt is not news. I have recounted stories here of the police running protection schemes in the wealthy areas of BsAs…. pay us or we tip off the burglars and look the other way.
Most damning is the evidence of the increase of imports of ephedrine under the K's watch - The Walrus seems to have been running the operation - for trafficking to the Mexican market. The whole sordid trade is likely to be revealed.
Meanwhile, the Ballenet legacy.
Jan 05th, 2016 - 01:33 am - Link - Report abuse 0News today of the Cadem survey of opinions in Chile.
68 percent disapproval for the presidenta (they should have figured this out during her first term or even before that, which suggests that the chilenitos are a little slow in understanding of the obvious).
Only 24 percent approve.
Bachelet: the Obama of Chile
Merkel, Rousseff, Bachelet....why are we surprised with the global economy in the toilet being lead by soviet marxist Bi+ches?
Jan 05th, 2016 - 02:51 pm - Link - Report abuse 0@313 bio
Jan 05th, 2016 - 06:10 pm - Link - Report abuse 0Merkel is hardly a “Soviet Marxist” - what a fool you are.
Any problems politically, has nothing to do with them being women - that is all in your head.
Have a nice day.
Pres. Bachelet is definitely a nice lady, however she should spend some time in a
Jan 07th, 2016 - 03:19 pm - Link - Report abuse 0re-education camp. And Interior Minister Burgos, an incompetent and ignorant nut, should be fired.
Philippe
Commenting for this story is now closed.
If you have a Facebook account, become a fan and comment on our Facebook Page!