[Marxism] Wall Street crisis deepens divisions in South America

[Walter Lippmann]

FROM THE Venezuela Information Office in Washington, DC:
South American leaders met in Brazil yesterday. President Chavez and
Brazil's Lula da Silva held their own regular quarterly meeting, at
which seven bilateral agreements were signed in the areas of iron and
steel production, oil refining, agriculture, and housing. The leaders
of Bolivia and Ecuador were also present, and all were critical of
the US financial crisis, according to Bloomberg. Lula da Silva said:
"Those that spent the last three decades telling us what to do,
didn't do what they had to do. The crisis is very serious and so
profound that we don't know how big it is." The AP reports that
President Chavez likened it to "a hundred hurricanes" and said that
"the Washington consensus has collapsed."

Other Latin American leaders have also spoken out, according to the
AP; President Arias of trade-dependent Costa Rica said, "The managers
of big business took huge risks out of greed." Even the right-wing
Bush ally Alvaro Uribe of Colombia complained, "The whole world has
financed the United States, and I believe that they have a reciprocal
debt with the planet." A Washington Post headline reads that the US
financial crisis "deepens divisions" in South America, but the
situation appears quite the opposite.

WALTER ADDS
The division is clearly between what Washington wants, which would
be more like the US relationship with Colombia or El Salvador, or
the growing trend toward Latin American integration. This is a key
point for Marxists today to try to understand. The development is
highly progressive, even if it's not predicated on the immediate
nationalization of the means of production in the member states.

Fidel was talking about this idea well before the declaration of
the socialist character of the Cuban Revolution two years later.
http://www.walterlippmann.com/fc-05-02-1959.html 


Walter Lippmann
Los Angeles, California
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INCA KOLA NEWS
9/30/08 Manaos, a hundred hurricanes and royalties

http://incakolanews.blogspot.com/2008/09/manaos-hundred-hurricanes-and-royalties.html

Lula, Evo, Muffin and Hugo all got together for a "mini summit" in
Manaos (North Brazil, Amazon, overrated tourist trap par excellence,
Lonely Planet sucks) today. No doubt they were planning some secret
plan to take over the world or some such, but they made plenty of
public statements about the US financial crisis. Here are four
snippets from the dudes in question:

Lula said, "We all have the same forecast; the crisis is very serious
and so deep that we don't yet know its size. Maybe it will be the
biggest in the history of the world."

Hugo said, "I hope they find a formula to get out of the crisis and
so that it doesn't keep expanding around the whole world like a fire,
like a spectre....it could cause more damage (to South America) than
a hundred hurricanes."

Studmuffin said, "These crises don't terrorize (South American
countries) like they did before.....Hopefully the day will come for
Latin America when it's irrelevant what happens in the United States,
probably that's when we would have achieved our true sovereignty."

Evo said, "Capitalism is not the solution for the people that inhabit
this planet...We nationalize so that the people have money, while the
USA wants to nationalize the debt and the crisis of people who have
money."
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Chavez Says U.S. Slump Hits Like `Hundred Hurricanes'
By Matthew Walter and Andre Soliani
Bloomberg
September 30, 2008
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=aSvvuco1AOjw

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said the turmoil in U.S. financial
markets will stunt growth in Latin America and may send oil down to
as low as $80 a barrel.

``This is a hurricane, or more than one hurricane, it's a hundred
hurricanes,'' Chavez told reporters after arriving in Manaus, Brazil
for a meeting with Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.
``I'm in the group that believes this will be worse than the 1929
crash. No country can say it won't be affected.''

Oil prices should stabilize between $80 and $95 a barrel, Chavez
said, adding the credit crisis in the U.S. will likely make it more
difficult to obtain financing in Latin America.

Both Venezuela and Brazil have announced measures to brace for the
fallout. Venezuelan Finance Minister Ali Rodriguez on Sept. 27 called
on Venezuelans to practice ``austerity'' amid the uncertainty, and
Brazil's Trade Minister Miguel Jorge said the government may take
steps to help exporters cope with a worldwide credit contraction.

`Very Serious'

During a ceremony today with Chavez in Manaus, Lula said that rich
nations are responsible for the global financial crisis, and called
on the U.S. Congress to pass a solution quickly. Emerging markets,
including Brazil, are better prepared to weather the crisis than the
U.S., he said.

``We did our homework and they didn't,'' Lula said. ``Those that
spent the last three decades telling us what to do, didn't do what
they had to do. The crisis is very serious and so profound that we
don't know how big it is.''

The crisis has already started to hurt lending in Brazil, said
Altamir Lopes, head of the economic research department for Brazil's
central bank, on Sept. 26. External funding for corporate loans
dropped 2.6 percent in the first two weeks of September compared with
a month earlier, he said.

Chavez said Latin American economies from Argentina to Ecuador have
been disconnecting themselves from the U.S. economy. Venezuela is the
fourth-biggest supplier of foreign crude oil to the U.S.

Crude oil prices plunged $10.52 a barrel yesterday after the U.S.
House of Representatives voted down a proposal to bail out the
financial system. Prices for crude for delivery in November rebounded
4.4 percent today to $100.64 a barrel at 2:51 p.m. on the New York
Mercantile Exchange.

`Completely Disconnected'

Chavez said the government will continue to tap central bank reserves
when they rise above $33 billion to finance investment projects, and
can also rely on money from a joint investment fund established with
China. An oil price between $80 and $90 a barrel is ``sufficient,''
and Venezuela isn't facing any immediate shortage of funds, he said.

The president said the Caracas stock exchange saw one of the only
gains in the world yesterday because it is ``completely
disconnected'' from Wall Street. Venezuelan stocks are some of the
least traded in Latin America.

Yesterday, $820,000 in trades were made in Caracas, compared with
$3.6 billion in Sao Paulo, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

The Venezuelan president said the surge in oil prices earlier this
year was caused in large part by speculation. Venezuela will continue
to push for the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries to
create a bank to use oil wealth for global financing as U.S. banks
fail, he said.

Trade

Chavez reiterated he'll promote the creation of a Latin
American-based regional development bank called the Bank of the
South, and said part of the plan for surviving a slump in the U.S.
should be for Latin American countries to increase trade with each
other.

``We can't and shouldn't waste another day to activate the Bank of
the South,'' Chavez said. ``Bureaucratic and technical issues have
prevented our bank from getting started.''

Chavez met with Lula today to discuss integration of the region's
natural gas market. The president said that his proposed ``Great Gas
Pipeline of the South,'' which would connect Venezuelan gas fields
with cities as far south as Buenos Aires, wouldn't be discussed.

Brazil and Venezuela have agreed to develop gas fields in Venezuela's
Sucre state and to build re-gasification plants in Brazil, Chavez
said.

At a signing ceremony attended by Lula and Chavez, Construtora
Andrade Gutierrez SA, a Brazilian construction company, won a $1.8
billion contract to help build a mill for Venezuela's state-owned
steel producer.

=======================================================================

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/30/AR2008093002813_2.html

U.S. Crisis Deepens Divisions in S. America

By Joshua Partlow
Washington Post Foreign Service
Wednesday, October 1, 2008; A13

RIO DE JANEIRO, Sept. 30 -- As his popularity has surged and his 
nation's booming economy has lifted thousands from poverty, Brazilian 
President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has largely refrained from the angry 
criticism of the United States that can be heard nearly any day from 
other South American leaders.

Not this time.

Last week, Lula told the U.N. General Assembly that the "boundless 
greed" of a few should not be shouldered by all, and on Monday he said 
emerging economies had done their best to have "good fiscal policy" and 
"can't be turned into victims of the casino erected by the American 
economy."

"This crisis belongs to the American bankers, to the European bankers. 
It doesn't belong to the Brazilian bankers," Lula said Monday. "It's not 
fair for Latin American, African and Asian countries to pay for the 
irresponsibility of sectors of the American financial system."
>

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     WALTER LIPPMANN
     Los Angeles, California
     Editor-in-Chief, CubaNews
     http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CubaNews/
     "Cuba - Un Paraíso bajo el bloqueo"
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