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But here’s something interesting.

In an analysis of the region’s sovereign debt prospects (PDF), Fitch Ratings divides the region’s economies into three “camps.” One camp includes countries like Venezuela, Argentina, and Ecuador, whose recovery will be slower than that of the rest of the world for reasons that should surprise no one (high inflation, weak institutions, poor fiscal discipline, if you must know).

In a second camp are countries like Chile, Peru, and Brazil, whose good fiscal discipline, low political risk, and safe investment environments mean their economies will be growing like weeds this year and next.

Then we have the middle camp, which is basically countries that cast their development lot with the United States: Mexico, Colombia, Costa Rica, El Salvador. And here’s the interesting part. Fitch projects this group will see only a moderately-paced recovery specifically because they’re tied to the US.

Meanwhile, Fitch says the Chile/Peru/Brazil group is doing particularly well partly because it does more business with China.

So I ask you: At what other point in recent history has easy access and close ties to the US economy been seen as a disadvantage?

(Original image courtesy H. Langos via Wikimedia Commons.)

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This advertisement, aired in Argentina, sums it up nicely.

Problem is, by my count, about half the people in this video are wearing jewelry. It’s black-and-white, so it’s difficult to tell exactly what variety – but my guess is that at least some of it is gold. These are movie stars, after all.

Countries like Argentina and the United States, with largely educated populations, relative wealth and abundant natural resources, are most prone to this kind of behavior. It’s a mutation of NIMBY-ism (Not-in-my-backyard) and not a particularly flattering one. You see, if we rich white folk (and anyone in the middle and upper classes of the very countries where such projects are proposed), are going to insist on wearing flashy jewelry, then we damn well better find a sustainable, socially-just way to mine precious metals in our own backyards, where we can keep a close eye on it.

Simply saying no to resource extraction in our home countries yet continuing to use them wastefully (Exhibit A: Petroleum), punts the problem to a less-developed country, where the very same issues take place with virtually no oversight and more extreme impacts (just a few examples here). We’ll give Argentina, and the folks in this video, the benefit of the doubt (Technically, it’s a developing country). But the United States, for example, sits atop the world’s largest gold reserves, yet in 2004, consumed 5 million ounces more than it produced.

What’s their excuse?

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Unfortunately, in order for numbers to be useful, you need some sort of baseline, and Google’s map doesn’t give us one. Maybe if you combine it with data on the number of people in each country who use the internet?

For example, Argentina has a population of about 40 million, only 28% of whom are connected to the internet. Google in Argentina has received 42 requests to remove information from one of its products, which breaks down to about 0.38 complaints per 100,000 internet users.

Though the raw numbers make it look worse, Brazil is about the same as Argentina, with 0.40 complaints per 100,000 internet users. But Germany beats everyone, with 3.1 removal requests per 100,000 users.

In the end, I’m not really clear on what Google’s trying to tell us. That Germany has greater internet restrictions than Cuba? Or that Brazil’s government is the only one in the world that gives enough of a damn about Google to file legal challenges against it?

The power of interactive mappy-thingies for promoting human rights causes is indeed great, but this is where the engineers should have maybe consulted with a social scientist.

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Four days later, a car bomb killed former Chilean foreign minister Orlando Letelier and his secretary Ronni Karpen Moffitt as they drove through Washington, D.C.

Frankly, I don’t find these documents as scandalous as the NSA does, although the AP says controversy over this particular point of history has been raging for some time. Avoiding warning other governments against committing atrocities is not nearly as outrageous as directly participating in or encouraging those atrocities. I suppose the implication is that if you avoid issuing warnings, you’re probably involved somehow.

What is interesting to me is the tone of the State Department communications. To wit:

What we are trying to head off is a series of international murders that could do serious damage to the international status and reputation of the countries involved.

Really? That’s what you’re concerned about? The “reputations of the countries involved?” I would have been concerned about the people to be extra-judicially tortured and murdered.

Anyway, it’s not like we needed further proof that Kissinger is a war criminal. Can you un-nominate someone for a Nobel Peace Prize?

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From the official document, via Página/12:

“The mining area includes the city of Andalgalá, a situation that is normal since, according to the Mining Code, two properties – both the mine and the surface property – can coexist. In this case, the mine’s purpose is prospecting and exploration, and in the event that it begins extraction, the corresponding compensation must be provided and the greatest public interest must be considered, giving priority to development.”

I’m not a natural resources attorney, but this sounds like a green light to expropriate the town for the greater good, and that’s how the residents of the 17,000-person town are taking it as well. Andalgalá was founded in 1658. Mining in the region first started in 1994, with Yamana’s Alumbrera project. In 2004 that company opened its Agua Rica mine 17 kilometers from Andalgalá. It was recently met with violent protests:

If that’s how these people respond to a mining project 17 km away, good luck trying to kick them out of their houses.

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