Veins

9/22/10
Veins
Your so veins, you probably think this post is about you. Ha! That’s a joke related to my favorite singer on the one hand, and true if you are a citizen of America on the other hand. What we have here is a two handed economist (me,) promoting the book Open Veins of Latin America by Robert Galeano. The news is about a year and a half old and I don’t feel comfortable attempting a full fledged review of Chavez’s book gift to Obama. But I can say something.
It’s not like I’m trying to be a Socialist, but the word is Imperialism. It’s not only the English speakers; what the Spanish did to those indigenous Indians is massive mortal sin in my humble opinion. For example, the poor were worked to death in the mines. Thus veins as in mineral deposits. Furthermore here is a list from the Index of natural resources and products that have been taken from way south:
Aluminum (Bauxite,) Animal products, Bananas, Beet Sugar, Cacao (chocolate,) Cattle, Cigars, Coca (cocaine,) Coffee, Copper, Cotton, Diamonds, Gold, Guano, Gypsum, Hides, Indigo, Iron, Lead, Manganese, Mercury, Molybdenum, Natural Gas, Nickel, Niobium, Oil, Opium, Pearls, Pepper, Petroleum, Pyrochlore, Quinine, Rubber, Salt, Saltpeter, Silver, Spices, Sugar, Sulfur, Thorium, Timber, Tin, Tobacco, Uranium, Zinc
Other fruit too is an example where the laborers get paid pennies, and wholesalers in countries like the U.S., England, Portugal, and Spain get the big bucks in dollars, pounds, etc. Coffee is another example. The entire above list serve as examples where the poor stay poor and the rich get rich.
This isn’t a review, it’s a description of a difficult to read masterpiece. If you are an economist, it’s got statistical data out the yin yang. While I’ve heard there are lies, damn lies, and statistics, I feel these numbers are helpful.
Maybe historical conspirators are our guys as they hail the red white and blue in American English. Maybe we can afford a more fundamental fairness as the hombres eek out frustrating dangerous livings. The book cries for evenhandedness.
Which reminds me, I haven’t railed at the mafia lately. For my fans I promise to return to well deserved punishment of the bad guys.