Latin America … getting hotter …
Latin Trade October 2019
Latin America … getting hotter …
Ingo Plöger, entrepreneur, Brazilian, President CEAL – Brazilian Chapter
First the forests of the Amazon… then Asunción boiling, in Lima the population wants more than the politicians, then Santiago in protests, La Paz burning polls, Guayaquil on the march, … elections in Argentina, Uruguay and Colombia, … it´s really getting hot in the region. Everything seemed still pretty normal until a few months ago and suddenly the South American Region became a melting pot and become national and international attention. Central America rehearsed some effervescent moments this year as Nicaragua, Puerto Rico and arriving in Mexico. Does something unexpected happen in the Region or will they be predictable but not perceived evolutions? It seems that the population of the region is really moving towards much deeper changes than the reported and perceived. Discontent is undoubtedly the propellant spring. Growing dissatisfaction is fueled by the new way of communicating by social networks, with and without fake News.
Most of the press can no longer put background news, with analysis and weighting, because it is run over, by social media, and in several cases begins to take sides, losing credibility. To make the communication environment much worse, Deepfake takes scary forms. If previously new and photos were assembled, now the combination of image, sound and voice make the receiver of these news faithfully believe in its content of truth; .. but Deepfake is nothing but a cunning montage using AI. To get rid of it, the hit person has no way to defend himself in depth, speed and scope, it becomes a virus of lie and manipulation of incredible contamination power. As in the battle of communication technologies has no limit, Artificial Intelligence AI, turbines the “tribes” by the new truths fueling the already preconceived opinion and in many cases, increasing discontent.
One of the sparks, which ignited the fires, was the increase in population spending by a government measure, which literally caused the population to get out of the “serious.” The increase in fuels, or the value of urban transport, is such a sensitive order, which the population realizes, that the next day will pay more of their pocket, without having any perceived improvement. This happened in Brazil in 2013, students in São Paulo demonstrated against the increase in metro and bus fares, spreading in days, to a widespread protest against corruption and mismanagement. In 2018 there was a general logistics stop in Brazil due to the truckers’ strike, due to the increase in the value of fuel. Nothing different in Macron’s civilized France, and in Latin American countries. Demonstrations in Chile began with the increase in tariffs and the people went to the streets. But this is just the fuse and the ignition of much deeper dissatisfaction.
The Latin American population, starting from brazil’s largest brother, is a severe movement of indignation to seek an improvement in life, combined with good policies, that are without corruption and mismanagement and aimed at the greater common good. This last part is relevant if the concentration of income rather that increases, particularly in an environment of low growth rates and with a vision of recession in the future. Seeing the large figures, the income concentration of the richest 10% in Latin America has fallen in recent decades but is still at a very high level of above 50% (world inequality index), with Europe 33%, USA 47%, Asia 47.5%). In the case of Chile, however it´s liberal and open economy, maintains a concentration of 54.9%of GDO from 10% of the richest population. It turns out that the Chilean model, highly privatized, maintained the social security system by capitalization and by some misguided system increased the concentration of income harming the less favored class. Remembering it´s a relatively small economy, the trade chains are high concentrated, giving little competitiveness and prices for the poorest population remain high. The consumer sensitivity to any public increase of regulated prices is very high and becomes a political factor.
The march of the Latin American society, is for more transparency, without corruption, better management, paying attention to social and environmental issues.
These values predominate the socio-emotional scenario of the Region.
That caused Macri to lose the election, which will be on the Uruguayan agenda, which will be decisive in Evo Morales’ Bolivian process, and having to be part of the solution to Ecuador’s dollarized economy. Bolsonaro´s Brazil in its best ongoing reforms, if he not observe the socio-environmental evolution may have political setbacks.
The temperature in Latin America is rising… it is necessary to have a different solution´s to keep the agenda for the development in these new turbulent times …
