Thursday, June 04, 2015

The currency is worthless in Venezuela

(My new American Thinker post)

 Once upon a time, circa 1980, I visited Venezuela.  The exchange rate was 4.29 Bolivares for one U.S. dollar.  The city of Caracas was alive, and the restaurants were fantastic.  I'm not saying that the country was perfect, but things were doing a lot better.

 Today, we got some bad news about the Bolivar, or the national currency:
Just a month ago, $1 was worth 279 bolivars. That was already pretty dismal for Venezuela. Now $1 equals 408 bolivars, according to the unofficial exchange rate, which most Venezuelans get when they try to trade currency.
Put another way, one bolivar equals $0.002 -- less than a penny. The country's currency has lost nearly half its value since the beginning of May, according to dolartoday.com, a website that tracks the unofficial exchange rate.
It's another sign that Venezuela is arguably the world's worst economy.  Venezuela primarily relies on oil exports to support its economy, which was already under pressure before oil prices tanked in the fall and winter.
A bolivar less than an American penny?

 We are watching the results of Hugo Chávez's populism financed by high oil prices. 

 It was a great plan as long as oil was $140 a barrel.  It kept a corrupt and highly inefficient public sector going, a source of a lot of political jobs and votes on election day.

 It's not that way anymore.  Oil at $50 is not enough to pay the freight.

 What happens now?  The answer may come in October:
The government owes about $5 billion in debt payments then, and there are few convincing signs that Maduro and his government can pay the bills. Venezuela could default on its debt in October, sending the country further into economic mire.
How likely is it that Venezuela will default?  I would say very likely if oil prices stay in double-digits in the near future.

 P.S. You can hear my show (CantoTalk) or follow me on Twitter.    We discussed this situation of the bolivar on Wednesday's show:
Check Out Politics Podcasts at Blog Talk Radio with Silvio Canto Jr on BlogTalkRadio
Tags: Venezuela and its currency the bolivar  To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the My View by Silvio Canto, Jr. Thanks!
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Bush's class plus the Obama disaster equals Bush more popular than Obama

A few weeks ago, I wrote about President Bush speaking at the SMU graduation ceremony.   He got a great reception from the students and parents.
To be fair, President and Mrs Bush are very popular at the SMU campus and Texas.   In other words, it was probably not a cross-section of the country.
“According to the poll, 52% of adults had a favorable impression of George W. Bush, 43% unfavorable. When Bush left office in 2009, only about one-third of Americans said they had a positive opinion of him. This new poll presents a notable shift as Bush’s overall favorability has remained well below 50% for much of his time as a presidential alum.
Overall, 47% say things in the country are going well, 52% that they’re going badly. That’s a reversal from March, when 53% said things were going well, the highest share to say so during Obama’s presidency. The shift comes across partisan and demographic lines, with no one group’s opinions driving the overall change.”
Polls come and go.   However, I think that this poll is correct for a couple of reasons:
1) President Bush has remained silent and away from politics.  He’s been active in non-partisan activities and shown a lot of class.    
2) President Obama’s foreign policy is a disaster and the domestic situation is not much better.  He has shown very little leadership or willingness to work with the GOP in Congress.   The real Obama legacy is that Democrats like Governor O’Malley and Senator Sanders are now running against his economic record.
Cheers for President Bush.   Glad to see that he’s getting some of the credit that he deserves.
P.S. You can hear my show (CantoTalk) or follow me on Twitter.


Tags: Bush vs Obama  To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the My View by Silvio Canto, Jr. Thanks!
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US-Latin America stories of the week plus author Andrea Amosson from Chile


Guests:  Fausta Rodriguez Wertz, editor of Fausta's Blog, joins us for a discussion of US-Latin America stories of the week......
Click to listen:

Check Out Politics Podcasts at Blog Talk Radio with Silvio Canto Jr on BlogTalkRadio
Tags: US_Latin America, Argentina and Mr Nisman, Venezuela and Pres Maduro, FIFA and scandal, Women in Latin America  To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the My View by Silvio Canto, Jr. Thanks!
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Wednesday, June 03, 2015

No babies, no Germany

(My new American Thinker post)

 We've all read about Europe's birth rates, or I should say their low birth rates.

 It's a problem that most politicians don't want to touch, although they will have to deal with the consequences.  I guess a lot of modern politicians don't want to say that couples should have more babies.  At the same time, we need for couples to have more babies.

 The latest analysis focuses on Germany, and it's not pretty:
Germany’s birth rate has collapsed to the lowest level in the world and its workforce will start plunging at a faster rate than Japan's by the early 2020s, seriously threatening the long-term viability of Europe’s leading economy.
A study by the World Economy Institute in Hamburg (HWWI) found that the average number of births per 1,000 population dropped to 8.2 over the five years from 2008 to 2013, further compounding a demographic crisis already in the pipeline. Even Japan did slightly better at 8.4.
“No other industrial country is deteriorating at this speed despite the strong influx of young migrant workers. Germany cannot continue to be a dynamic business hub in the long-run without a strong jobs market,” warned the institute.
The crunch is aggravated by the double effect of a powerful post-war baby boom followed by a countervailing baby bust – the so-called “Pillenknick”. The picture in Portugal (nine) and Italy (9.2) is almost as bad.
The German government expects the population to shrink from 81m to 67m by 2060 as depressed pockets of the former East Germany go into “decline spirals” where shops, doctors’ practices, and public transport start to shut down, causing yet more people to leave in a vicious circle.
In the past, those of us who've spoken about the collapsing Euro birth rates have been dismissed as religious fanatics or other stuff that I can't share in a family blog.

 Yet this is not about religion.  It's about reality.  You cannot have a future without babies.  In other words, at some point you run out of people.

Also, the aging population will require more health care.  Will younger immigrants be willing to pay the taxes to support all of those social programs created by people that they have no cultural connection to?

 There are other impacts, such as having to rely on immigrants to keep up your population.  Will these immigrants integrate and adopt their new culture?  Or will they assume majority status and impose their own culture?  I don't know the answer, but those "no go zones" in Paris offer a glimpse of a future that isn't very French.

It's a complicated subject, but the bottom line is simple: no babies, no future!

 P.S. You can hear my show (CantoTalk) or follow me on Twitter.


Tags: Germany birth rates To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the My View by Silvio Canto, Jr. Thanks!
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Blatter will soon be singing......and singing "mucho and mucho mucho"



Tags: FIFA and corruption  To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the My View by Silvio Canto, Jr. Thanks!
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A Tuesday night look at the world



Tags: FIFA, Germany birth rates, 2016 election  To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the My View by Silvio Canto, Jr. Thanks!
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Tuesday, June 02, 2015

So much of 2016 is up in the air

(My new American Thinker post)

 In previous presidential elections, I've had a pretty good idea of whom I was going to support 18 months before people vote.

 For example, I was behind Romney at this moment in 2011, McCain in 2007, and Bush back in 1999.
I love our field but would prefer to wait a bit, because there is so much in the air about 2016.   

 Frankly, I'm not even convinced that Hillary Clinton will be the Democrat nominee.  

 Furthermore, it's not crazy to say that the final two may not even be candidates yet.


 My good friend Barry Casselman, The Prairie Editor, wrote recently about the three elements of 2016.   It really made me think:
While there likely will be some inevitable “Obama fatigue” among many voters, particularly among independent voters, in  November, 2016, Democratic strategists have options open to them which might overwhelm this 8-year “fatigue” pattern. The 1988 cycle demonstrated how, with a weak nominee/ticket,  Republicans were able to retain the White House after two terms of President Reagan. The question is: Is Hillary Clinton a strong or weak nominee? The polls so far indicate that Democratic voters remain determined to nominate Mrs. Clinton, who would be the first woman nominated by a major party for president. Many Democrats, furthermore, consider calls for the liberal party to choose another nominee to be a conservative “plot” to deprive them of their strongest nominee. Many savvy GOP strategists I know, however, prefer Mrs. Clinton over a “wild card” Democratic nominee who might snatch a surprising victory from defeat[.] ... This is not unlike the preference of Democratic strategists for Bob Dole in 1996 and John McCain in 2008 to be their opponents. Well-known nationally, firmly established in their  party, Mr. Dole and Mr. McCain were nevertheless ultimately weak nominees. Aside from the gender card she always plays. Mrs. Clinton is a controversial figure and an unimpressive campaigner. The current discussion of her conduct as secretary of state, and of the allegations about the Clinton Foundation which she co-heads with her husband, the former president, are proving to be a protracted and enduring drag on her public image. In some ways, her opponents are accomplishing what Mitt Romney’s opponents accomplished in 2011-12 before his nomination, i.e., so severely wounding his political image early that he could not recover momentum in his race against Mr. Obama.

On the other hand, the Republican presidential nomination contest has become, at its outset, an opaque battle of several personalities, ranging from center right to radical right. This reflects much of the public discussion of current conservative politics, but not necessarily the mood of most conservative voters. Lacking a frontrunner as the Democrats have, the GOP field of candidates is initially very large, as it was in 2012. In the latter cycle, the debate season produced polls with rotating, frontrunning contestants until Mr Romney finally prevailed. It was thought briefly that Jeb Bush would emerge quickly as the dominant candidate in 2016, but the early picture  has at least three major candidates, Bush, Scott Walker and Marco Rubio, with Chris Christie and John Kasich, among others, waiting in the wings. The debates will likely be instructive, but this cycle, the early primaries/caucuses might not play the roles they have in the past. Already, the traditional opening shot of the GOP contest, the Iowa Straw Poll, is floundering as many of the major candidates are skipping the event.
I would add another factor: what I call the passion factor.

 In 2008, and to a lesser extent in 2012, Obama benefited from the passion factor.  It was "cool" to vote for Obama, even if a lot of his supporters couldn't tell you much about his record or positions.

 Will there be such passion in 2016?  I don't see it for the Democrats.  Mrs. Clinton is not exciting anybody.  Mr. O'Malley and Mr. Sanders have their supporters, but I don't see much excitement.   

 On the GOP side, there is a passion, but let's hope that we don't beat up each other trying to score debating points.    

 Again, so much is up in the air.  I want to wait a bit before I hitch my wagon to a candidate.

 P.S. You can hear my show (CantoTalk) or follow me on Twitter.




Tags: 2016 is up in the air To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the My View by Silvio Canto, Jr. Thanks!
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A look at our politics with Barry Casselman, The Prairie Editor


Guest:  Barry Casselman, The Prairie Editor, joins us for a look at the US and international scene......we will look ahead to some of the elements of the upcoming 2016 election.....how reliable are past results?  will 2016 redraw the Electoral College map?  the UK elections and what it means in the US.........and the unsettled state of the 2016 nominations.......

 Click to listen:
Check Out Politics Podcasts at Blog Talk Radio with Silvio Canto Jr on BlogTalkRadio
Tags: 2016 trends and issues beyond polls  To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the My View by Silvio Canto, Jr. Thanks!
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Monday, June 01, 2015

It's the Obama Record that O'Malley and Sanders are Bashing

(My new American Thinker post)

 Governor O'Malley made it official. He is in and running for us, as he told the crowd:
"Our economic and political system is upside down and backward and it is time to turn it around"...
Senator Sanders said something similar a few days ago.

 Who's been in the White House for seven years? 

 Whose stimulus didn't stimulate? Whose "shovel ready" jobs weren't ready after all?  

 Who promised so much and didn't deliver?

 Friday's economic report was not good news at all according to the Washington Post:
Remove the trade deficit, and the U.S. GDP grew 1.2 percent in the first quarter. Not since 1985 has trade so heavily dragged down growth. In the first quarters, businesses also pulled back on inventories, further cutting into growth.
Still, perhaps the biggest surprise of the past six months has been the muted pickup in consumer spending, which accounts for about two-thirds of the economy. Personal consumption grew 1.8 percent in the first quarter, but that’s well off the pace from the second half of 2014. Consumers, instead, have taken the money saved at the gasoline pump and used it to pay back debt or rebuild savings, according to government and credit card data.

They may say that free trade agreements are bad for American workers.My guess is that Sanders & O'Malley will tell us just how bad the U.S. economy is and how the middle class is not doing well.  
They will say that health care costs are high and that Americans can not afford the deductibles.   

They will conveniently skip over that all of this has happened on Obama's watch.  
Or that all of those high deductibles are a consequence of ObamaCare.   

 And finally, I hope that they remind their voters that President Obama is pushing the Pacific free trade agreement that will devastate the nation's workers. 

 Of course, maybe they're afraid of criticizing President Obama because they need a large black turnout in 2016.

 P.S. You can hear my show (CantoTalk) or follow me on Twitter.
Tags: O'Malley 2016, Sanders 2016  To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the My View by Silvio Canto, Jr. Thanks!
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ISIS, Iraq, Iran nuclear deal and other issues of the week



Tags: Iran nuclear deal, ISIS & Iraq, GITMO 5 released in 2014, GOP 2016, O'Malley 2016, US economy takes a step back,  To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the My View by Silvio Canto, Jr. Thanks!
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