President Evo Morales of Bolivia had an idea when he took office a few ago; he stopped using the government to redistribute income from the poor and what little middle class there is in Bolivia to the rich. Now demand for goods is up and poverty is down. And he did it without letting in corporate economic rapists.
What did Morales do? He ignored all the advice given him by Washington D.C. economists. Free trade? He tossed that income redistribution scam into the garbage. Bolivia “nationalized hydrocarbons, electricity, telecommunications and mining; renegotiated the presence of direct foreign investment in the country; implemented an expansive fiscal policy and closed borders to the free importation of economically strategic products. The state took 34% of the economy under its control.” That means the profits from those industries weren’t sent back to the United States or the United Kingdom or wherever the corporations that owned those industries are. The profits stayed in Bolivia.
The economy grew 5.4 percent last year. Since and including 2007, as the rest of the world crumbled, the Bolivian grew an average of 4.5 percent per year. Are you listening Obama?
