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I fail to see how either of these comments discredits the fact that Chile made great strides through policy change.
When you have a valuable resource and a small population a socialist country can do quite well, Venezuela and Norway would be two other examples. What happens in Venezuela when the oil dries up and they have nothing else because the population was paying 15 cents for a gallon of gas for 30 years?
Ha...poverty here is a tv, a cell phone, and a car.
Poverty over there is having one chicken instead of three.
Yeah, tough time 'eradicating' poverty.
You can not compare our poverty to that of Chile's poverty. We do not have people setting up camp in the dumps here.....yet. Agree with the above post.
Does Chile have to provide safety nets and pensions for a population consisting of 350 million, plus countless million ILLEGAL aliens? If not, any comparison is apples to oranges.
The US does not have a safety net. European countries , Canada, Japan, Australia, Chile, and Argentina, etc ( I cant name all ) have safety nets.
In the US, social security does not include the most important element of a social safety net which is health security aka universal healthcare, so you just made me laugh, the USA is the country where the safety net is nonexistent.
We pay the same (very close) amount of taxes that Canadians pay (% of income) but the difference is that our tax money goes to finance the US army (Tomahawk missiles, soldiers, F22 Raptors, war tech, etc etc), while other countries put that money in a safety net aka social security systems that are actually Social to take care of their population.
We have the biggest and most technological army but if you get sick and have no insurance you must pray and pray...
Wow, the government says it's doing a great job! Whodda thunk!
There is much online to read about Chile's economy and its policies that would make this a subject open to intelligent debate, but you would rather embarrass yourself with this type of response. Strange.
Businessmen, however, foresaw that to have economic growth increase while democracy existed, they would need to accept the tax increases to increase the long-term benefits. An increase in taxes was necessary to reallocate money from the well off to the poor. Tax revenues increased to approximately 15% while fiscal spending on social policy increased to 11.7% of the GDP compared to an earlier 9.9%. Contrary to many worries, investment in Chile grew to 25.6% of the GDP in 1993, the highest in Chile's history. With an increase in tax revenues, the post-dictatorship governments of Presidents Aylwin and Frei have been able to improve social conditions of the country paying specific attention to the poor. Between 1990 and 1994, money spent on the health system increased seventy percent in real terms. Hospitals were renovated and constructed. Those in the medical field saw their salaries rise and clinic services for the poor and in rural areas have also been expanded. Workers rights have improved due to the lifting of strict union-limiting laws and the prohibition of collective bargaining imposed under the Pinochet regime. Once these laws were removed, workers were able to negotiate for better working environments and increased wages. The minimum wage had increased by twenty-eight percent between 1990 and 1993. (NOTE: However, former Chilean Finance Minister Alejandro Foxley noted that the minimum wage increased thirty-six percent. During 1993, the unemployment rate was a low 4.5%. Since the end of the regime, achievements in the arena of social spending have emerged including almost universal health coverage and improvements in primary education. Between 1989 and 1993, public financing for infrastructure and housing had increased sixty percent. Per capita, public spending on health services increased by thirty percent and free childcare for children ages two to five was accessible for extremely poor families.....
There is much online to read about Chile's economy and its policies that would make this a subject open to intelligent debate, but you would rather embarrass yourself with this type of response. Strange.
Then produce that, rather than government propaganda. Clearly you aren't interested in serious debate by presenting this silliness.
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