Sunday, December 31, 2006

A Trbute to Pinochet

Once upon a time, the wingnuts was besotted by Pinochet's privatization of Chile's social security system. It was in fact a sadly typical example of how a rightist idea can be made to sound fantastic on paper.

But that wonderfulness rested on a pair rickety supports. First, the Chilean economy had been so depressed that accelerated growth was inevitable. And the system relied not just on growth but growth at, well, an unsustainable pace. (In the real world, I mean, not the right wingnuts' faith-based -- delusional -- world.) Second, the brilliant free market system forgot to include actual incentives to make people opt from the public plan to the private system.

Speaking of the private plans, they included what were essentially unconscionable management fees -- you know, in that right wing perverse free market where offering money managers a huge pool of money they wouldn't normally have access to isn't enough. Rather, they have to be assured of unconscionable profits in addition to the assured profits thay'd have anyway.

Only problem:

It failed.

Not that that teeny-weeny fact will affect Our Leaders' determination....

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