The tower of the Zero Hunger

[Roberto Lopez]

When I was a child, Argentina was a nearly rich country.

By mid '70s people below poverty line were about 5%.

From 1976 a dictatorship applied an economic plan based on the Chicago School of economics theories. The bureaucrats, working on that, were known as 'The Chicago boys'.

The main target of the plan was to destroy the industries. They achieve that, resulting in a huge income transfer to the banks.

By the end of the dictatorship (by 1983) people below poverty line was about 20%.

After that, a democratic government tried to revert the situation without any noticeable results.

By 1991 another democratic government applied an economic plan based on guidelines known as 'The Washington consensus'. This plan was applied for about 10 years and it was devastating.

It ended in early 2002 with about 60% of the people below poverty line. Every day, you could see entire families, carrying their stuff in carts, stirring the garbage looking for food and sleeping in the streets.

From then, different administrations tried to improve the situation with partial success.

Today, the situation is better, but you can 'see' the poverty in the streets yet. This is a terrible situation, specially for the children.

An organization called 'Por Los Chicos' (For The Children) had created "The tower of the Zero Hunger" in order to prevent hunger in children in Argentina.

They do not are asking you for money.

You only must to leave a message to a kid. This will add a 'brick' to the tower and it will cause that a sponsor donate a food package (a 'brick' for the tower).

The site is: http://www.porloschicos.com/

The site is in Spanish, but it can be easily translated using any of the translation tools available.

Thanks for your help.

[esgici]

Done

Best regards

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Esgici

[Vanguarda]

Hi friends,

Great ideal. My wife and me, send the messages. Now I traduce your post and will send for our personal email list.

My best regards,

[Roberto Lopez]

Done

Best regards

--

Esgici

Thanks!

[Roberto Lopez]

Hi friends,

Great ideal. My wife and me, send the messages. Now I traduce your post and will send for our personal email list.

My best regards,

Thanks for your support!

[luisvasquezcl]

Una gran obra la que hace esta gente ...
Te comento que nosotros en Chile también tuvimos a los que llamaron "Los Chicago boys", este grupo fue implementado por la dictadura que tuvimos entre 1973 y 1980 y que dejaron una pobreza gigantesca además de matar economicamente nuestro pais. Arreglaron de tal forma la economía que permitieron que se vendiera el pais a algunos allegados al gobierno y que formaron los grandes grupos económicos que son los dueños de chile, entre ellos nuestro actual flamante presidente de la republica.
Bueno, no voy a alargarme más; paso a poner mi granito de arena para ayudar a nuestros hermanos.
Saludos cordiales,
Luis Vasquez.

[Rathinagiri]

It is so horrible. How much had they ruined a great country to this level.

My penny too...

[swapan]

Done!
Was not aware of the fact that in 70's Argentina was in such good shape financially..........

[sudip]

Roberto, I also wrote something. Thank you for telling us about the site.

Our country (India) also has same type of problem. Rathi, Swapan - what are you thinking? Let's make a better world

With best regards.

Sudip

[Roberto Lopez]

Done!
Was not aware of the fact that in 70's Argentina was in such good shape financially..........

From mid 40's until mid 70's Argentina had an economic system based on a 'welfare state', similar to the one on many west European countries.

During that period, we had moderate to high budget deficit that was financed with excessive money emission, creating inflation.

So, financially (as a country) we was not so good, but the unemployment was low, the industries were strong and the poverty was very low too.

When the economic system was changed (from 1976) the budget deficit was financed with external debt. It worked for some time, but we finally reached a point when the debt was impossible to pay, so we need refinancing. We got it, but we was obligated to reduce the deficit. Reducing the deficit, decrease economic activity, so, the government incomes from taxes decreases too, creating new deficit. The end is the debt default (a complete disaster).

Sadly Greece and Spain appears to be in a similar situation now. I hope that they have better luck than we had.

Their main problem is to be 'tied' to the Euro. An extremely strong currency that they can't handle.

Sorry for the boring explanation

And Thanks for your support.