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Chile miners rescue: President's popularity soars

Erod said:
So why is Chile bankrupt?
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It's not. It actually has one of Latin America's strongest economies.

BBC News - Chile country profile

The country had Latin America's fastest-growing economy in the 1990s and has weathered recent regional economic instability. But it faces the challenges of having to diversify its copper-dependent economy - it is the largest world producer - and of addressing uneven wealth distribution.

Chile's unusual, ribbon-like shape - 4,300 km long and on average 175 km wide - has given it a hugely varied climate.
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Chile Economy, Chilean Economic Profile | Economy Watch

Chile has a strong economy, characterized by high volumes of foreign trade and a sound economic policy. Chile’s exports account for 40% of its GDP and have experienced growth of 4% since 1999. Chile has a free trade agreement with the US to liberalize its trade policies. Chile enjoys free trade
agreements with the European Union, Mercosur, China, India, Mexico and South Korea. From 2003 to 2008, FDIs in Chile were worth $17 billion, which dropped to about $7 billion in 2009 due to the global economic crisis. The Chilean government had injected a $4 billion stimulus to counter the recession in 2009, the result of which was felt in Q4 2009, when the economy showed signs of a recovery.
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Strong showing of Chilean economy anticipates 5.5% GDP expansion in 2010 — MercoPress

The sharp increase of 7.1% increase caught many analysts by surprise. “The market expected an Imacec of around 6.5%, but personally, I expected 7% due to the low base comparison with respect to last year (-2.7%)” said Universidad Andrés Bello economist Sebastian Mathews.

Finance Minister Felipe Larraín is confident that Chile will meet its growth objective of 5% year-end economic growth, and that it is possible to exceed it. Most analysts now agree that the Central Bank should raise the yearly growth projection to be somewhere between 5.0 and 5.5%.
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I bet that dood with the mistress who's wife found out was like "no thanks, just send down some nicotene patches and put the futbol game back on, I think I'm safer down here.... Gracias!"
 
The shift supervisor deserves a medal from the President of Chile.
 
spud_meister said:
Yes, the state owned mines in Chile have a near impeccable safety record when compared to the private run mines.
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Really? Do you have more information on this?

But the original point was that free enterprise freed the miners, not the government.

And it is the responsibility of the government to ensure safety standards and if these were known beforehand, and ignored, then the government is as responsible as those who ignored the warnings.
 
The miners were saved by an international collaberation of scientists, engineers and mine workers who did this out of a sense of wanting to help fellow human beings. They did not do this for profit, unlike the mine owners and president of Chile who through negligence and an overriding need for profit, deliberately put these miners lives at risk.

While these 33 miners have been saved, another 33 have died so far this year in Chile. This country is the 19th most unequal state in the world. The richest 10% receive 40% of Chile's income and expenditures while the poorest account for only 1.6%. This inequality is the product of 2 decades of brutal dictatorship under General Pinochet who savagely repressed the working class and imposed free market policies devised by Milton Freedman. These economic policies have been continued under Pinochet's civilian successors, conservative, liberal and social democratic and are a major element of scrapping industrial safety regulations which lead to the trapping of the 33 miners. As a result, there are only 16 safety inspectors for the entire mining industry which just happens to be Chile's largest single export earner. In the Atacama region, where the San Jose mine is located, there are only three inspectors responsible for 884 medium and small mines.

Not only that but President Sebastian Pinera is a billionaire businessman with direct links to the former Pinochet regime. His brother was Pinochet's minister of mining and labor and pushed through a Constitutional Law in 1981. The law cleared the way for privatizing most of the Chiliean mining industry and thereby creating the conditions for the sharp deterioration in safety conditions.
 
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Chilean politics and partisan bickering set aside - President Piñera set a very good example of what people expect to have from their leader during such situations - being present, concerned, watchful and supportive of the people going through the situation rather than departing *during* a crisis for personal-things.

This is the essence of *leading* - and if more leaders took on this role rather than passive leading maybe our country (and many others) would be far better off.
 
Aunt Spiker said:
Chilean politics and partisan bickering set aside - President Piñera set a very good example of what people expect to have from their leader during such situations - being present, concerned, watchful and supportive of the people going through the situation rather than departing *during* a crisis for personal-things.

This is the essence of *leading* - and if more leaders took on this role rather than passive leading maybe our country (and many others) would be far better off.
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Pinera's "concern" was nothing more than an opportunistic propaganda exercise.

He turned a rescue operation into a complete circus where the media was party to every opportunity to put the president in a good light and appear to care about these miners. When the miners were saying that the mine was unsafe, no one listened including the president, the media and the mining company that caused the situation in the first place.
 
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Jarmax said:
Pinera's "concern" was nothing more than an opportunistic propaganda exercise.

He turned a rescue operation into a complete circus where the media was party to every opportunity to put the president in a good light and appear to care about these miners. When the miners were saying that the mine was unsafe, no one listened including the president, the media and the mining company that caused the situation in the first place.
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Often leadership is doing what the people *want* you to do - and not what *you want* to really be doing.
 
Councilman said:
Manual Gonzalez the last rescue worker in now out and the end of this part of the story is over.

By the way I watched the first Rescue worker go down and the first and last Trapped Miner come out and Chile’s president, Sebastian Pinera, was there until the end.

I admire his stamina and along with all who have now been there over 24 hours straight.

This is a Country with a great deal to be proud of.

I only hope this event is used to inspire safer conditions in Mining, and the pride helps left the whole Nation to better times.
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Since the President Chili is a right winger, I would suspect conditions in Chili mining would remain the same.
 
Aunt Spiker said:
Often leadership is doing what the people *want* you to do - and not what *you want* to really be doing.
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How is ignoring what the miners were saying about how the mine they were working in was unsafe, doing what the people want? If he was any president worth is salt, he would have taken notice of them and done something before the disaster happened. Instead he did nothing for the people and was only at the rescue operation because it was opportunistic propaganda exercise for him. Unless you believe that showmanship is more important in a president than taking action to help the people who elected you.
 
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Jarmax said:
How is ignoring what the miners were saying about how the mine they were working in was unsafe, doing what the people want? If he was any president worth is salt, he would have taken notice of them and done something before the disaster happened. Instead he did nothing for the people and was only at the rescue operation because it was opportunistic propaganda exercise for him. Unless you believe that showmanship is more important in a president than taking action to help the people who elected you.
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I believe I said "politics and partisan bikering aside . . . " and then referenced that in this particular situation how he didn't wander off to go play golf or vacation away his worries amid other people's struggle was more along the lines of what people expect in a leader.

I didn't say, "how he leads his country - always - is a fine example of how a leader should act" or "isn't he just a swell guy all around!" now did I?
 
Grant said:
What makes him a "right winger"?

He wants a balanced budget?
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National Renewal (RN) (Spanish: "Renovación Nacional"), is a conservative political party belonging to the Chilean right-wing political coalition Coalition for Change in conjunction with the Independent Democratic Union (UDI) and the Chile First movement (CH1). The party president is Carlos Larraín, and its principal leaders are Sebastián Piñera, president of Chile, and Andrés Allamand.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Renewal_(Chile)
 
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