By Nono Barahona. April 9, 2017
SANTIAGO, Chile. The Chilean Socialist Party will decide today whether to nominate former President Ricardo Lagos Escobar as the Party's presidential candidate.
Mr. Lagos, a former president with a strong reputation in the country, known for his defiant stance against the late dictator Augusto Pinochet, faces strong competition from senator Alejandro Guillier for the Socialist Party's presidential nomination.
A defeat would be a tremendous blow for Mr. Lagos and his chances of becoming the presidential candidate of the governing coalition, among other things, because he is recognized as a historical figure of the Socialist Party, which is not the case of Mr. Guillier.
Mr. Guillier is the official presidential candidate of the Radical Party, another member of the governing coalition.
Since announcing that he wants to be the presidential candidate of the governing coalition, known as New Majority, Mr. Lagos has been trailing badly in the polls. On the other hand, Mr. Guillier is currently second in the polls.
By Nono Barahona. April 8, 2017
SANTIAGO, Chile. In an interview with a Chilean newspaper, President Michelle Bachelet, 65, said that she is not interested in a "brutal economic growth" by itself, adding that the economic growth that matters is the one that improves people's lives.
Although the President used the word "brutal", she meant "whopping", "exceedingly high", a typical meaning of the word in Chilean Spanish.
The interview was published yesterday, and it resonated all over the Chilean press, with most media outlets quoting from it.
She acknowledged, though, that she is not happy with the fact that her current administration has been dominated by low economic growth, but she pointed out that, despite that, unemployment has been relatively low.
In the same line, she added that for those who rate an administration on the basis of economic growth performance, "evidently this is not going to be the administration with the highest economic growth".
However, regarding the current economic growth figures, she said that she has the feeling that they have hit rock bottom and that from now on the economy is going to grow, according to the article.
And she said that it is a fact that in 2018 there will be greater economic growth. For that reason, she warned that the next administration, whichever it is, should not take credit for higher economic growth.
President Bachelet's administration is into is final months, with a presidential election scheduled for November 19 this year. Therefore in 2018 a new administration will be in office.
Asked about her legacy, she said that she hopes that all the reforms she has pushed for, that sought to give people more dignity, and equal opportunities and rights, are embedded in people's lives.
She added that she expects that at the end of her administration Chile is a better country than at the start in 2014. She elaborated that by better she meant "a little bit fairer, a little bit more egalitarian" and a country that gives "a lot more opportunities to its boys and girls. That's the legacy I'm looking for. I'm not looking for statues", she said according to the interview.
"When you feel that you have to do something about the inequality that exists in the country, you know that's going to have costs, because not everyone will agree with the change". Asked about whether the political costs were worth it, she said that they are worth it when they help people, according to the interview.
By Nono Barahona. April 6, 2017
SANTIAGO, Chile. Any Chilean working under an employment contract knows what an AFP is, because the moment they are hired by a company they are required by law to join an AFP. No choice there. Well, they can choose which one of the several AFPs they want to join.
The AFPs are the private companies that manage the workers' savings for pension payments. They "manage" in the sense that they try to increase those savings while at the same turning in a profit.
Any Chilean working under an employment contract knows that 10% of their monthly salary goes to an AFP, every month. The law says so and there is nothing they can do about it. And they know that in most cases a worker can not receive pension payments from an AFP before they reach the age of retirement, which for men is 65 years of age and 60 for women.
And any Chilean has heard the rumor that after they retire they are going to get a pension that is going to be far below, way far below, their last paycheck as an employed worker.
And that's something that scares everyone.
Enter the "No more AFP" movement. The movement staged its fourth rally the Sunday before last, March 26 (See our article). They claim that 2 million people took to the streets on that day all over the country ---that is approximately 11% of the Chilean population, a lot of people.
In their website, they say that AFPs pay a third of your last paycheck, that in all developed countries and in almost all OECD countries (Chile is an OECD member) people get on average 70% of their last paycheck for pension, that in those countries pensions are handled by State-run entities, and that in those countries private companies are only supplementary to the State-run entities and do not replace them (in Chile there are no State-run entities).
For all those reasons, the "No more AFP" movement wants to give AFPs a one way ticket to hell.
However, most experts say that is not likely to happen. What did happen, though, is that they got everybody talking about the AFPs, and often in a bad way.
In fact, the movement's impact has been so huge that now, for the first time since the inceptions of AFPs 37 years ago, a major proposal has been floated to change the system, and everyone seems to agree on it: increase by 5% the mandatory statutory 10%.
Big question: Who is going to pay for that additional 5%? The worker? The employer? The Chilean State? A combination of the 3?
Another big question: Who is going to manage the additional 5%? The AFPs? A State-run entity? Something in between?
Still another big question: Who is going to implement the additional 5%? The current administration of President Bachelet, now into its final months, or the next administration, yet to be elected?
No consensus has been reached so far on the answers to those big questions.
With widespread dissatisfaction with them fueled by the "No more AFPs" movement, AFPs are now sailing in rough waters.
By Nono Barahona. April 4, 2017
SANTIAGO, Chile. Camilo Ignacio Navea del Canto, a young man aged 19, was stabbed to death last Saturday for allegedly defending a stray dog which was about to be beaten by a street peddler, Chilean media have reported.
According to press reports, the youth, who was fond of sporting a "punk" look, had a reputation for loving animals, volunteering time to care for stray dogs, and was starting a curriculum to become a veterinarian orderly.
Last Saturday night, April 1, he would have spotted a street peddler who was about to beat a stray dog. Camilo couldn't take it and confronted the man, according to articles in the Chilean media.
Sadly, the street peddler, aged 33, had a criminal record for theft and for carrying a cutting and stabbing weapon, and stabbed Camilo in the abdomen and then took off.
The killing took place in Anibal Pinto square in the city of Valparaiso, Chile's main port.
As many foreign tourists notice, Chile is home to a large population of stray dogs, some of them posing a threat to passers-by.
The killer would have confessed to the killing and was indicted with murder. A court decided to send him to jail for 80 days, which is the period of time allocated to investigate the killing.
By Nono Barahona. April 3, 2017
SANTIAGO, Chile. In a report submitted today, the Chilean Central Bank said that the Chilean economy will grow between 1.0% and 2.0% in 2017, cutting by 0.5 percent its forecast of December 2016.
In December 2016, the Central Bank had estimated the Chilean GDP growth at between 1.5% and 2.5% in 2017.
Under the report's new GDP growth estimate range, the Chilean economy runs the risk of growing below 1.6% in 2017.
In 2016, the Chilean economy grew 1.6%, the lowest since 2009.
The report said that a major factor cutting the GDP growth forecast was the strike by workers of La Escondida in the first quarter of this year.
La Escondida is the world's largest copper mine. Its workers went on strike for 43 days, in the longest strike in the history of the Chilean mining industry.
The strike ended last March 23.
The Central Bank report said that, as a result of La Escondida strike, GDP growth for the first quarter of 2017 is close to 0%, adding that the strike would trim by 0.2% points the annual GDP figure for 2017.
In a more positive note, the report said that the Chilean GDP is expected to grow between 2.25% and 3.25% in 2018.
By Nono Barahona. April 1, 2017
SANTIAGO, Chile. "El Mercurio", an influential Chilean newspaper carried a front page story today saying that 120,000 jobs were lost in the Chilean economy in the last year.
The story indicated that the 120,000 jobs lost involved people working under employment contracts, as opposed to self-employed workers.
Employment contracts provide workers with pension fund savings and health care insurance.
The story says that the job loss figures were based on a report by the Chilean National Institute of Statistics, referred to as INE in Chile.
111,000 jobs were lost in the private sector and 9,000 in the public sector, the story says.
On the other hand, self-employed workers grew 131,730 over the same 12 month period.
A scholar was quoted as saying that 83% of self-employed workers do not contribute money to their pension funds, do not have health care insurance and have very low income.
That means that self-employment in Chile is no match to working under an employment contract in terms of income and social security.
The INE report was published yesterday, but it only provided percentage unemployment figures. It says that unemployment grew 0.5% over the last 12 months and that it jumped to 6.4% in the December 2016-February 2017 quarter, the highest for the same period in the last 6 years, says the paper.
The fact that an influential newspaper says that 120,000 jobs were lost in one year lends a lot of credibility to the story, in what seems to be a scoop for the paper.
This story, and similar ones (See our stories "Chile's 2016 GDP growth of 1.6% lowest since 2009" and "Chilean construction industry takes a dive") over the last few days paint a grim picture of the Chilean economy in 2017, a year in which a presidential election is scheduled for November 19.
By Nono Barahona. April 1, 2017
SANTIAGO, Chile. It originally aired as a feature story in the news of a TV channel last Wednesday, but the findings stunned viewers so much that they rippled out through the media in the following days.
The story sought to determine whether lawmakers, because of the fact that they make 40 times as much as the minimum wage, live in a world of privilege, separate from the daily concerns of millions of their fellow countrymen, the story said.
Interviewed at random, Congressmen (and women) were asked two questions:
How much is the metro ticket at rush hour? And how much is a kilo of bread?
None of the respondents came up with the right answer. One of them was even too way off the mark not to raise eyebrows.
The questions were asked to both left-wing and right-wing lawmakers.
One expert said at the beginning of the story that all lawmakers, because of the money they make in Congress, belong in the top 5% of the richest people in Chile.
Metro ticket and bread prices have a direct impact on the budget of the approximately one million Chileans who earn the minimum wage.
Metro (the Santiago subway train network) is the fastest and most efficient way to get from A to B around the city for the working man.
Most Chilean families typically buy fresh bread every day for breakfast and in particular for our beloved "once" (a sandwich and a cup of tea, but it may include other bakery items as well, eaten between 5 pm and 7 pm).
A kilo of bread typically includes around 10 pieces.
After paying the rent, the one million Chileans who earn the minimum wage can only afford two Metro tickets and one kilo of bread every day, the story said.
Discovering that at least some lawmakers do not know these prices, which are critical for millions of Chileans, inevitably raises the question of how well they do their jobs, for which they are paid more in Chile, a developing country, than lawmakers make in some developed countries, the story said.
