Latin America poverty 'may soar'

[IndianaGreen]

Source: BBC News

Latin America poverty 'may soar'

Page last updated at 02:41 GMT, Saturday, 7 February 2009

The global financial crisis could cause poverty to rise in Latin America by as much as 15% this year, a senior UN official has warned.

Rebeca Grynspan, regional head of the UN Development Programme (UNDP), said Latin American governments needed to take action urgently.

She expressed particular concern about smaller countries, saying they might not cope with such a big shock.

Analysts fear 2.4 million Latin Americans may lose their jobs.

Ms Grynspan said the region's governments needed to inject public money into their economies or they could lose the significant social gains made in recent years.

She told reporters in Washington that failure to take action would result in a potential rise in poverty of between 10% and 15% this year.

She said she was especially concerned for the smaller economies in Central America and the Caribbean - which she said lacked the financial means to deal with the crisis.



Read more: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7876169.stm

[Joanne98]

1. They need leftist governments.

[EFerrari]

3. I have my fingers crossed for El Salvador. n/t

[Xithras]

5. Sure, but it won't help much.

Leftist governments help their poorest residents by ensuring that enough wealth redistribution occurs to keep the poorest out of poverty. That model doesn't work well if there isn't much wealth in the first place. Latin America is generally a resource-poor region which dramatically limits the ability of ANY government to generate wealth.

[EFerrari]

6. After the last few hundred years of continuous American vampirism

in Latin America, I find that pretty hard to believe. If there was nothing there that was valuable, our government wouldn't have been there.

[Bacchus39]

7. its happening. didn't you read the OP????

I know its difficult for you to accept reality.

[Xithras]

8. American interests have been defensive and agricultural

American investors were making money hand over fist with United Fruit and its descendants, and we didn't want military "competition" from Europe.

The problem is that the "value" of Central American agriculture is dependent on the slave wages the workers earn. If a leftist government were to nationalize those resources, the only resources of significant value that really exist in that part of the world, there would be an immediate push to raise wages and standards of living among the workers. That would push prices up, largely eliminating the market for the products and destroying the value of that resource (let's be honest, nobody is going to pay $10 for a bunch of bananas).

[EFerrari]

9. But they pay that much for drilling or mining rights.

[Bacchus39]

10. $10 for drilling or mining rights is pretty cheap

maybe if they charged more there wouldn't be as many poor people.

[Xithras]

11. Insufficiently large to support a national economy.

Oil supplies in Central America are limited and already dwindling, and while mining DOES exist, it's not on a scale that can support an entire national economy. There are simply too many people, and not enough valuable resources to support them all. Wealthy westerners may have figured out how to exploit them for profit, but once the exploitation goes away, much of the profit goes with it.

[IndianaGreen]

14. America's prosperity was build on the backs of the workers and peasants of the world

The pendulum is swinging in the opposite direction.

[jwirr]

2. Oil is the major export from Mexico and they are running out. After

that is gone they are definitely going to have economic problems even worse than they already have.

[NickB79]

12. Indeed. 40% of the Mexican government's revenue is from oil production

And oil production has been plummetting the past few years as their fields run dry. The current drop in oil prices makes things even worse.

We worry about failed states in the Middle East, Africa and Asia, but we may have one on our southern border within a decade.

[HereSince1628]

4. Wiki lists the population of "Latin America" as about 550 million

Nearly twice the size of the US. We will lose many more than 2.4 million jobs this year.

The US is currently bailing out it's basement. We'll be available to help them sometime next decade

[Fire_Medic_Dave]

13. The SCHIP program will devastate the Dominican Republic.