MERCANTILISM AND PHYSIOCRACY

By: Felipe Argote

THE MERCANTILISTS

Economic relations between countries is a zero sum game. This means that someone loses what someone wins. This is the central concept that defines the mercantilist. The term is not from themselves or even about an economic think. Rather it is later coined by his detractors. The mercantilist are convinced that to make more powerful a nation should put tariffs on imported products and ensure the maximum export. Also felt that the strength of the emerging nation states was given by the volume of gold that they could accumulate. Not all current mercantilist, despite having a very backbone of thought, started from the same premises. So we know the French mercantilism Jean Baptiste Colbert summed up in gold accumulation, domestic market protection and export subsidies, then there is the known as the Spanish mercantilism Bullionism concept that focuses only on the accumulation of wealth in precious metals, and English mercantilism focused on foreign trade as a source of wealth of a country. In all cases it is not a stream of economic thought but a list of measures centered in government protectionism.

THE PHYSIOCRATS

From the Physiocrats many took some of their original ideas to further process their own theories. Of course it is harder to develop a hypothesis when there is nothing written. Rather than establish a model the Physiocrats are sure that there is a divine natural order and that the way of men to try to understand, not change it. This current arises from 1756 describes the certainty of a rule of nature against the interventionist mercantilism. Specifically attributed to Vincent de Gournay's is the phrase: "laissez-faire, laissez passer”. Let it be, let it pass. However they are Riquetti Victor, Marquis de Mirabeau and Jean Froncois Quesnay especially the founders recognized this trend. The term physiocracy means rule of nature. This is the concept later taken by liberal currents and specifically Adam Smith's invisible hand.

Quesnay was a doctor by profession and became the court appointed physician at the age of 58. Following the 63 meets with Mirabeau and of this meeting emerged the first school of economic thought.

Physiocracy represented the interests of farmers. They believe that all the wealth was produced by the land since the product was superior to the components. According to them the industrial class, craft, and trade was sterile because their final product of its components differed only in human labor. This will take the historicist in its labor value theory that later developed both Smith and Ricardo and later Carl Marx.

However, his concept of economic freedom is not consistent with their political ideology because instead supported the authoritarian power.

Le tableau économique de Francois Quesnay develops his view of how the rent moves. In short believes that society is divided into three classes: agriculture, one that creates wealth, sterile, composed of craftsmen and merchants, and landowners. If the agricultural class produces 5,000 million francs of this 2,000 million paid to the owners of the land and spent 1,000 francs to buy what produce industrial and artisans such as clothing, tools and more. Then the owners of its 2,000 spent income received by 1,000 on land given to them products and a thousand craftsmen in which farmers obtained while the craftsmen spent 1,000 of their income on agricultural products and 1,000 it paid to owners. If landlords spend more than necessary for products of the craftsmen, can exist then a contraction in the economy.

PHILOSOPHY ON THE INMORTALITY OF THE CRAB

By: Felipe Argote

Again the increasingly small circle of leaders of political parties and the electoral tribunal, along with a handful of representatives of social organizations have met to discuss reforms to the electoral system in Panama. I must say that as usual they are still missing, probably on purpose, in a sterile discussion, divorced from the interests of the general population. I heard the president of the election board authority say very enthusiastic that the meetings were discussing the philosophy of what a political party. The discussion was deep and rich, said the magistrate. This showed how mature is the Panamanian society, politically speaking, he argued. It is probable that he was so deep that the discussion would have to apply for a backhoe to dig a minimum of practical outcomes, on such waste of neurons. And would as would say the brilliant Argentine cartoonist named Joaquín Salvador Lavado, better known as Quino: We as a society are mature, politically speaking ... for be eaten by whom... politically speaking.

I must stress that the method of choice is the genesis of the problem that elected politicians do not represent the best of society. I heard the chairman of the House of Assembly, referring to the scandal of the Social Investment Fund (FIS), now half-drowned amid the carnival party, that if they wanted to go to the province of Herrera and ask about the bags of food delivered by him with the budget for the FIS. That each and every one of the bags was delivered, therefore nobody could, accuse him of corruption. Is tuff to realize not only the level of cynicism, but of the very low scale of values of the most important politicians in Panama. According to the deputy, a billionaire shareholder of the largest manufacturer of liquor in our country, it is absolutely legitimate for him to take my money and all those who pay taxes to spend on food bags for delivery with his name and be benefit from the sympathy of voters in his electoral circuit. That what would be wrong is to keep the money and not deliver the food bag. Also a deputy of the party now in opposition indignantly asserts that the entire budget of the FIS that appears in his name was given in t-shirts, balls and all kinds of sporting goods, because he is a great supporter of sport in San Miguelito. Of course he is a great supporter of sport, with our money. Now we understand why after promising the end of the FIS in the election campaign, the new president say the good news he will better not close it, he will better restructure it because it benefits the neediest compatriots. Let’s get to continue the piñata!

While not specifically provided unambiguously that it is forbidden to politicians to directly or indirectly give money or any kind of perks, backed from the national treasury during any season, or not even their own assets until six months before the election period including the party primary. While these measures are not taken in the electoral reforms we will have candidates with the same profile as the current ones.

Some unsuspecting people ask why there is such a low level of participation of women as candidates of parties or their boards who cannot match the current trend that most professions are graduating more women than men. The answer is obvious: it is because decent people, including of course most women do not want to get involved in politics, because it discredits. Very few politicians, if any, have survived being personal vilification.

Then the reform commission, instead of philosophizing about what are the political parties and the immortality of the crab, the electoral reform commission should discuss urgently how noticeable change the rules of the electoral code, and in this way modify the profile of candidates and candidates. It's the only way to prevent in the short or medium term most of the citizen end up disenchanted altogether and simply not participate even with the right to vote. It is of course the only reason for the dismal of our political leaders, nor is the only reform needed, but you have to start there, because in the sense that things are going we will continue to suffer from the inability of Panamanian politicians.

MAYAIMI

By: Felipe Argote

Although most of the inhabitants of what is now known as Miami were the Tequesta Indians, the name of this city owes to the Indians called Mayaimi which were located around Lake Okeechobee, formerly Mayaimi and the river Mayaimi that means clear water in the indigenous language. Then came Ponce de Leon, seeking the fountain of youth. According to the version of Hernando de Escalante Fontaneda a wrecked Spanish as a child in Florida who was raised by the Indians for 15 years, as was later published in the "History of Spain in the New World" by Antonio de Herrera y Tordesillas, published in 1575, Juan Ponce de Leon was seeking the fountain of youth in these parts for many years.

Ponce De Leon had led the colonization of Puerto Rico. It was there where he heard stories that the Indians of a region at the north often went to a fountain where an old man after diving could regain his youth, getting a wife and rise new children. Ponce De Leon came to Florida in 1513, but never located neither he nor any other Spanish of many who sought it, the magic fountain of youth.

This area was never established by the Spanish because after multiple military campaigns to settle the Indians they could not break them but they were capable of exterminate them. Incidentally the Spanish managed to install a Christian mission in the eighteenth century, in the area of Tagestas run by the Jesuits, from where they were trying to convince mayamienses prisioners, after a series of torture by soldiers, that there was a God better than theirs, full of goodness and wisdom, and that if they do what their torturers wanted, they were to achieving happiness… after death. Finally the Spanish abandoned not only Miami but all of Florida to Cuba taking as slaves the last survivors of the extermination. Not only because of the forced labor used by the colonizers, but because of the young men separated from women as well, preventing their reproduction. The current indigenous Florida Seminoles are not native to these areas, arrived later from Georgia, fleeing in terror of the nascent American nation army that chased them as buffalos to send them, according to the plan, as to all Indians of the country to the territory of Oklahoma.

The turning point occurs in Miami in 1891 when Julia Tuttle purchased 640 acres at the mouth of the river Mayaimi, now known as Miami River. Then he convinced Henry Flagler, the billionaire owner of the Florida East Coast Railroad train to carry the rail line to Miami to build a luxury hotel. So they built the Hotel Ponce de Leon of 500 rooms which was an immediate success, supported by the legend of the fountain of youth. That was the beginning of the great growth of tourism in this city. In 1890 there were 851 inhabitants in the area. Today there are 5 ½ million people.

Today Miami is the fourth most populous city in the United States. 81% of its population is Hispanic, 22% is black and 12% are White. It is the city with the highest immigration in North America since 60% of the population born outside the United States. 34% born in Cuba, Nicaragua 6%, 5% in Haiti, 3% is Honduran, 2% is Dominican and another 2% is Colombian. In Miami, 67% of people recognize Spanish as their first language as against just 25% who said that his first language is English. This great migration has resulted in the emergence of neighborhoods named after cities in Latin America and elsewhere. Although the best known are Little Havana and Little Haiti, there are also Little Bogota, Little Caracas, Little Managua, Little Moscow, and Little San Juan.

Obviously, the more immigration is the Cuban, as during the 60s came and stayed to live in Miami half million Cubans. Then came the great immigration of so-called Marielitos in 1980 where arrived on the beaches of Miami a total of 100,000 Cubans.

Despite being the third richest American city and the apparent rapid growth of business and tourism Miami is now the third U.S. city with the highest poverty rate with 27% of its population, surpassed only by Detroit in Michigan and El Paso Texas.

The city was devastated by Hurricane Cleo in 1964 and then has been hard hit by Hurricane Betsy in 1965, Andrew in 1992 and Katrina and Wilma in 2005. Along with Nassau, Bahamas, and Havana is one of the cities most likely to be devastated by a hurricane in the future. We hope it never happens. The city of Miami was awarded as the cleanest city in America by Forbes Magazine due to its air quality, their ample green spaces, its recycling program and its clean streets and water for human consumption.

BRETTON WOODS

1944: THE NEW WORLD ECONOMIC ORDER

By: Felipe Argote

In July 1944 Colonel of Staff Berthold Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg and a broad group of conspirators attempted to assassinate Adolf Hitler by planting a bomb in a briefcase placed under the table of the meeting hall of one of Hitler's bunker near of Rastenburg, in the east of what was at that point East Prussia, now located in Poland. Moments after Colonel von Stauffenberg left the room; someone tripped over the bag and moved out of the way behind a pillar. This saved the life of the Fuhrer (leader). Although killed several members of his staff and many others were injured, Adolf Hitler left the room slightly injured with some shrapnel in the leg only.

A month earlier, on 6 June 1944 was developed the so-called D-Day It was a massive landing of allied troops on the beaches of Normandy. They landed on that day and thereafter, three million soldiers from the U.S., Canada, England, France, Poland and Spanish Republicans. At the same time the Red Army was advancing in the east and had recovered part of Poland.

While that was happening in Europe in Hampshire, USA, among a group of gentle mountains called with names of presidents, where stands the colossal Mount Washington, in a fairly complex called George Washington in Bretton Woods, representatives of 44 countries met in the so-called Monetary and Financial Conference of the United Nations. The aim was to establish a new world economic order that would emerge at the end of World War II.

At this conference arose basically two positions: the United Kingdom led by the prestigious Sir John Maynard Keynes who presented the proposal to create the International Clearing Union, an international compensation fund where the surplus countries would transfer this money to the deficit, and the Bancor, an international currency backed by strong currencies and fixed exchange rate. Then there was Harry D White for the United States of America who presented the proposal to create the outline of the gold dollar standard to a fixed fee of $35 per ounce of gold from which to set the terms for monetary exchange with other countries. Harry White was the principal negotiator of the U.S. delegation, behind which was Treasury Secretary Henry Morgenthau.

There was finishing the Second World War, the U.S. had tamed a vast fortune selling weapons and lending money to its allies, to the point that he kept in his coffers especially in Fort Knox for 80% of all gold in the world. Also, they produced two-thirds of the world's oil and half the coal. The specific weight of the US was used by the Americans by adopting its proposal the gold dollar standard and then the creation of the so called International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, later called the World Bank and International Monetary Fund in the voting weight for the parts of the 8.800 million that was to launch the capital of these banks. So the United States accounted for 31%, to 14.89% Britain, the Soviet Union 13.6%, China 6.3% and France 5.1%. The rest would be contributed by other countries.

With the great weight percentage controlled by the United States they define the location of both banking institutions in their country and imposing its administrative leadership. Japan, Germany and Italy of course did not participate because they represented the axis that was at that moment cornered by the army of the allies. But even it took more than a year and two atomic bombs to end the war.

Also emerging from this meeting in Bretton Woods agreement called the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade for its initials in English GATT (General Agreement on Tariff and Trade) which was the genesis of what ultimately culminated in 1995 with the creation of the World trade.

At the end of the conference, the Soviet Union did not ratify the agreements. China during the conference was represented by the Kuomintang government, but with the defeat of the Nationalists by Mao Zedong in the civil war, China People's expressed indifference to the Bretton Woods agreements.

PYRAMIDS OF EGYPT

BUILT BY ALIENS?

By Felipe Argote

The human species is worthy of analysis. People are willing to believe without objection, following the writings of Genesis, that after a universal flood, the survivors gathered at a place called Babel, decided to build a tower to reach heaven, and God in order to avoid interfering in his home, confused their languages generating different languages. On the other hand it is difficult for people to accept that human civilization was able to do so impressive monuments like the pyramids of Egypt. The Tower of Babel in Babylon according to ancient texts “Esagil” as preserved in the Louvre museum, prove that the tower had a height of ninety feet.

So hard to believe that the ancient Egyptians built the pyramids that many say were built by extraterrestrials alliens. That's why 85 percent of the population is religious, because it is easier to accept that something is the result of divine or magic instead of stand to analyze the complex processes that lead to a logical outcome.

As in ancient Greece was just beginning the foundation of city of Troy destroyed many years after by Achaeans of Agamemnon and his armies in 1200 BC, in Egypt, however, had already built the three great pyramids of Egypt including the Great Pyramid and the Great Sphinx. After years of archaeological studies already are said with certainty that these colossal monuments erected at a time when the rest of the planet was back thousands of years, were not the product of divine creation or by alien. They were the result of a civilization that gradually matured engineering needed to construct these pyramids. The higher the pyramid of Cheops measures 136 meters today. The logistics of moving, lifting stones and all that is now known not only show that the builders were human but at the time of its opening were far more spectacular than now.

Of the seven wonders of the world listed in a poem Antipastro of Sidon in 125 B.C. only the pyramids remain, as neither the Colossus of Rhodes or the Hanging Gardens of Babylon or the Lighthouse of Alexandria, and the temple of Artemis at Ephesus, or the Statue of Zeus at Olympia, nor the mausoleum of Halicaranso have survived the weather, or the stupidity of human wars.

The Cheops pyramid, called the Great Pyramid was built by Pharaoh Khufu, or Cheops around XXVI century B.C. He had an original height of 146.61 meters, something like a fifty-floors building. Originally it was covered by blocks of polished white limestone and topped by a gold tip. You should only imagine how awesome would this monumental building of white stone bright with the desert sun and even more with gold in its tip. Fascinating. All the limestone cladding was many years later dismantled block by block for construction. Particularly devastating were the Ottoman invaders who took the limestone to build the mosque of Hassan.

Then there is the pyramid of Chephren, built in the same period as that of Cheops and the Great Sphinx then that is believed to represent the face of the pharaoh Chephren with lion body. It conceptualizes that the destruction of his nose was the result of the government of the Mamelukes, a Turkish slave order that seize not only Egypt but who defeated the French king Louis IX in the seventh crusade. We know that theft of the false beard of the Great Sphinx of Pharaoh is owed for sure to the English invaders. This is because it is exhibited in the Museum of London. Originally the statue was colorful.

The construction of the pyramids did not happen by spontaneous generation. This is demonstrated by the large number of failed pyramids scattered throughout Egypt, until the construction of the Step Pyramid, according to Manetho, an Egyptian who wrote in Greek in the third century BC responsible for the stratification of Egyptian history into dynasties, states that this first pyramid was built by Imhotep, the first architect in history. He was responsible for the first prototype of the pyramid to build the tomb for Pharaoh Zoser in 1250 BC.

We see that not only the Egyptian structures were human but the effort was not started in the field of architecture but of the economy. Centuries of economic development based first on understanding the benefit of sediment of Nile growth, serving to establish the periods of planting and harvesting. Then they build the canals of the Nile. Abundant production is what makes efforts to move towards a superior organization and accumulation of food allowed to devote part of society to build monuments. Also do not forget the embalming of mummies still preserved nowadays, another geniality of Egyptian civilization. Similarly the thousands of statues and other monuments they build. There are therefore no aliens anywhere in the process.

CHAFLANESCUS

Ana Matilde Gomez: The Indictment


By: Felipe Argote

This area of analysis and theorizing opinion can not be a mere spectator when is in danger democratic stability. I remember when I was a young child the confrontation between Max del Valle and Marco Aurelio Robles. They walk by in the streets outside the legislative palace in the chest wearing a tricolor ribbon that they said credited as the presidents of the Republic. One recognized by the National Guard and the other by an assembly of deputies from which a couple of political parties of the ruling coalition defected to the opposition and deposed the president to put the vice president. The Panamanian citizenship, with its Caribbean soul that always gets from his misfortune a piece of jocularity, saw in the street a third president. He was the popular Chaflán, a urban clown always with his young buddy, the child Roberto Duran who after many years would be the word champion “Mano de Piedra Durán”, developing comedy acts in the middle of the streets. Their jokes and dancing occurrences were paid by the people with a lot of applause and a few coins. Well at that time Chaflán also walked with a tricolor ribbon in the chest in the tumult of the troubled city, and the crowd roared with laughter.

Forty years since presidential crisis and the political class has learned nothing. Now the president puts his chips on the Supreme Court against the grain of the views of civil society. Then he used them to separate the nation's Attorney General, Ana Matilde Gomez. But what were the reasons claimed by them to separate the general attorney of the nation?

Well. In 2005 a man named Miguel Zambrano resident of La Chorrera, asked Archimedes Saez, the district attorney, not to move his daughter from prison of Chorrera to the women's prison in the city, since she had a newborn daughter. The prosecutor requested and obtained from Zambrano $600 for the favor. He then asked for two thousand U.S. dollars in exchange for get her freedom. Mr. Zambrano in a very brave filed a complaint against the prosecutor Sáez.

Attorney Luis Martinez, who received the complaint, communicated Zambrano with the intermediary of Saez and puts the speaker on his phone. This mechanism then confirmed that the prosecutor Sáez asked for the two thousand. Then it is mounted a cover operation with marked bills and proved that the attorney actually received the money.

Sáez subsequently caught in fragrant with the marked money charged The General Attorney Ana Matilde because he said they intervene illegally his phone conversation. This complaint is what the Supreme Court use as a reason to dismiss the Attorney General's Ana Matilde Gómez.

We could say that this is a clear message that no one dares to pursue the corrupt because you can afford very expensive damages, but this is more serious. It is obvious that the reason for the dismissal of Matilde Gomez is farfetched and that the new judges have acted with unusual speed, it shows that the objective is to control all institutions of the state at any price, with independence of public opinion and disrespect for the intelligence of the citizens.

The separation was decided on Thursday, while Martinelli and his vice president to whom the former Varella not left her side, perhaps because he already knows the story of Max Del Valle and Marcos Robles, were both on travel. Although both are out of the country, a statement released by the Cabinet Council appointed Giuseppe Bonissi as new General Attorney. Or they knew the outcome of the decision of the court before the judges voted or the Cabinet Council meets on a virtual zone or as someone said by blackberry.

Today, the country wakes up with three General Attorneys: Ana Matilde Gomez, Giuseppe Bonissi and Luis Martinez, appointed as deputy attorney by Ana Matilde Gomez.

Too bad Chaflán is not with us anymore; although the situation is so serious that it might not even lead to such occurrences I will say… chaflanescus.

DANCING WITH BILLION

By: Felipe Argote

The seventies of last century was a time of great events, changes and especially of political crisis. The defeat of the U.S. Army in Vietnam, the large amount of military government in Latin-America, the elimination of the gold dollar standard and the oil crisis. But it was also the decade of the so-called dance of the millions. How it started and which was the corollary of this situation is what we will try to convey.

In the early sixties there were seven oil companies that operated as a cartel that controlled the oil market by imposing the sales price as much as the price paid to the oil countries. In 1960 the cartel known as the "Seven Sisters" decided to reduce oil prices that were paid to producer countries. It was the U.S. Esso, the Shell of the Netherlands, the English British Petroleum, Exxon Mobil from U.S., Chevron from the U.S. Gulf and Texaco of the United States.

In order to have greater bargaining power and seek to raise the prices they received for their oil, a group of these countries form the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC). The founders were Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Iran, Kuwait and Venezuela.

Thirteen years later, On October 6 1973, Syria, Egypt, Jordan and Iraq attacked Israel's positions. This conflict ended with the occupation by Israel of much of the territories of the attacking countries. This is called the Yum Kippur War.

As part of its strategy, the Arab countries declared an oil embargo on countries that collaborated with Israel in the war. Suspended the sale to the U.S. and Holland, South Africa and Rhodesia. Then decide to cut production to reduce supply and raise the price of crude. This rise the barrel from $ 3 to $ 3.65. This embargo as may be gathered includes six of the Seven Sisters oil cartel with the sole exception of the British Petroleum as England was impartial in the conflict. England and France and decided to stop selling weapons to both sides of the conflict.

It was a period of great tension. United States was losing the war in Vietnam but also faced the greatest mobilization of domestic sectors against the war and its economy was deteriorating rapidly. Richard Nixon had unilaterally suspended the Bretton Woods agreement that established the relationship since 1944 as an international standard gold dollar. U.S. refused to exchange dollars from European countries for gold. There was not the best time to put the country into a new armed conflict despite the weakness of the Arab army against the United States. After various negotiations, the embargo is lifted on 17 March 1974. Oil prices had quadrupled reaching $ 12 a barrel.

This high increase in oil prices led to an influx of cash into the oil countries, underdeveloped countries in general. These countries did not have the financial or economic structure capable of handling large flows they received. They did not have banks that may put these savings in loans to the productive sectors, so that the flow bounces largely to banks in developed countries. These banks were so full of petrodollars then at one point has no one to lend. The American CITIBANK saw the exit to the liquidity crisis on these lapidary words: states do not go bankrupt.

This begins the dance of the millions. Millions of dollars of credit to third world countries, without control, without discretion and without the hope of being paid the agreed deadline. Only one way to put the money that exceeded the possibilities of large banks. So that money helps to feed the corrupt civilian governments first and then a military dictatorships that saw the chance to manage these credits by their own. Thus nourished most Latin American dictatorships of the left-right and populist. He fell to the easy money green like a green field scrum vegetables. Vortex which then began soliciting loans and loans to pay interest, then pay the interest on loans for more capital. Billions of dollars squandered on:

• Weapons

• Consumption

• Corruption

• Adventures of private financial

Type financial institutions were created where the state COFINA a shareholding. So an investor sought and obtained funding from the state financial institution for a project. The state became a partner of the investor as if the business was good dividends earned status but was wrong and broke the state lost their investment because more was a shareholder in the project. Many failed and its failure led the state capital.

Part of investors and to the high volatility of dictatorships and countries plagued by both political and social instability but preferred funding request to divert more stable countries, ie developed countries, which bounced back petrodollars to countries the first world.

As the Ponzi pyramid, this dance of the millions ended when Mexico informed the financial institutions could not pay their overdue balances. This happened in 1982. From the moment you close the period of the dance of the millions and opens the debt crisis, the so-called lost decade.

Now, after nearly sixty years after the birth of OPEC, the Financial Times, the prestigious international business newspaper, has submitted the list of new seven sisters, these are the seven most powerful state oil companies from countries not members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), better known as the club of rich countries. These state companies are: Arampco Saudi Gazrom Russia, CNPC of China, NIOC of Iran, PDSA of Venezuela, Brazil's Petrobras and Petronas of Malaysia.

FINANCIAL FRAUD


By: Felipe Argote

Every time I read about efficient markets, this theory based on the Austrian school of economics which assumes that people generally make wright decisions, I don’t have to see Chris Rock to laugh.

A few months ago, at the time David Murcia was take prisoner for their fraud pyramid, I was chatting with some friends. In the middle of the night two of them knowing my training, not asked me for advice but advised me to join them in an adventure that was infallible. Invest a few dollars and get the double in less than six months. A friend had invited them to a meeting where a financial expert will explain and then sold participation certificates. In trying to persuade them that there was not currently a financial transaction with that profit unless they surrendered both drug trafficking, challenged me with an innocent smile that investments were not made in Panama, that the cash were delivered to New York where they quickly reproduced as safe investments by the stock market buying and selling shares. There was no danger and that in United States there were many checks against fraud. A little more impatient assured that this was indeed a fraud and there were no guarantees that were true. They presented the example of a very serious friend who had entered the business with five thousand dollars a month ago and had received a thousand dollars of interest on his hands. In seeking to renew its approach as naive as his aide received 20% of his own money but the remaining 80% was in other hands, they bothered with mea if I were responsible for trying to kill their dream. Seeing them again a few months after they never returned to the subject, so I concluded that they were actually cheated and sorry to say ... you were right.

Not only is the case of Murcia, nor is it as many think the scams are run ignorant low academic profile. On the contrary, this fraud is repeated since the famous case of Charles Ponzi, an Italian immigrant who is granted the creation of so-called pyramids in 1919 in New York. Charles Ponzi was receiving money from investors and paid a 50% interest in 45 days. This led to almost nothing, as Charles had no wealth at the beginning, came less than a month to accumulate $ 5,000 for small investors to those who actually paid 50% interest in the term agreed, everything from new investors attracted excited by the pioneer investors. Only in May he had half a million and in July went to $ 9 million. In August, the business collapsed with heavy losses of new investors and those who have reinvested their profits. Surely not the first time applied the system; the same Ponzi confessed that he had already practiced in Canada ten years earlier.

I think people generally make decisions based on the options they have in front and in order to maximize their utility be persuaded that all is well because they wanted it that way. If not, how it is understood that after all the atrocities that made the Catholic church during the Inquisition and the colonization yet most people in this area of the planet to remain member of the catholic church.

Bernard Madoff, nearly 90 years later, developed the same pattern, only instead of promising 50% in 45 days, he paid 15% annually which is only twice the market average. So his pyramid does not last months, but last almost forty years in collapse. Because the scheme is very simple, you just have to ensure the entry of new investors to pay as much money as necessary to cover the earnings of those who came before. It's like the partnership scheme of social insurance. The new contributors pay the retirement of those who came before with the difference that those who enter are paying a portion and retirees that the pyramid and other insurance should be extended to new employees in a growing economy. Madoff was one of the most respected financial analysts to the point he was director of NASDAQ, which was one of its drivers.

But is not unlikely that a fraud of fifty billion dollars including as victims Steven Spielberg, the heiress L'Oreal, the team New York Mets, Santander Bank, BBVA and HSBC can last forty years? Well it did until it Madoff called to his luxury apartment in New York two of its senior managers of Madoff Investment Advisory Company to confess that he could not pay investors a commitment to some 7,000 million dollars. He said that figures for the investment company was a fraud and that his pyramid scheme had not entered enough new investors. That it was all a fraud. The managers called the police. Their names: Andrew and Mark Madoff, his own sons. This was in December 2008.

A few months later, in February 2009 Sir Allen Stanford, a Texan knighted by the Queen of England three years earlier, was charged with fraud. Stanford was the owner of the Stanford International Bank based in Antigua. Its advisory council was formed by Luis Gusti, former president of Petroleos de Venezuela, Peter Romero, former U.S. ambassador to Ecuador, Adolf Ogi, former Swiss President, Jorge Castaneda, former foreign minister of Mexico, Alfredo Arizaga, former Ecuador's finance minister and Lee Brown, former mayor of Houston. The pattern was the same as Fonzi, Madoff and Murcia, new investors get their money to pay the profits above 10% which yielded his investment company. According to Forbes magazine, Stanford was on number 205 among the richest in the world.

David Murcia, a cameraman living in a fourth category hotel, paying $ 7 per night in exchange for advertising on a Catholic radio in less than five years becomes a billionaire, taking the massive savings of people in Colombia , Ecuador, Venezuela and Panama. Paid between 70 and 150 percent interest in six months. He had survive longer if the authorities did not charges him of illegal money collector, just because she lacked the necessary permits to recover investment as if it were the respected Madoff and Stanford.

We know how to apply the system and survives whenever you count on new depositors with enough savings to cover the interest of the first, but as Madoff and Stanford developed a classic collection of money Murcia, in my opinion was more creative and had the complicity of many other businesses, but their high interest rates would last much less and would cause even greater disasters caused because unlike Madoff and Stanford to swipe some of the capital to millionaires and billionaires, Murcia is the mostly plucked to low and middle income people. When the Colombian government closed DMG, tens of thousands of people took to demand the return of their savings. Murcia, unlike Madoff and Stanford gave them capital in exchange for a card they could use to buy in any store or Pharmacy or any other businesses that had agreed with the scammer to accept their cards. After six months the buyer of the card, many of whom had spent their own money by using pre-paid card, received from 70% to 150% of their initial investment. Of course if you buy a hundred dollar card and you are of low income you will spent all the card in days after selling your land, your house, your car and borrow at lower interest and you have many cards you can not spend it and decide later use, but the pyramid fell before spending it and nobody will accept the cards anymore.

When officials investigated the company that supposedly verified accounting Madoff Investment, a company of fifty billion dollars, it was found that only three people, one of which was seventy years old and one was his secretary. When the researchers who analyzed the investment sought Stanford International, found he alone had access Stanford and his high school friend James Davis.

It is likely that if not stopped the operation of Murcia have happened as the greatest tragedy in Albania in 1996 and 1997. In this country, located in southeast Europe, in 1996 two companies Xapheri and Populli capture two million depositors in a country of 3 million and half people. The government did not get into the issue, the whole dumb sold or slaughtered their livestock, liquidating real estate, cars, and savings and invested in the pyramids. When the scheme collapses this level of rioting was the tens of thousands who had lost everything, then left the army to control the situation which resulted in more than two thousand dead, the fall of President Berisha and the country depleted and plunged into the deepest misery. There were savings in the pyramids for an amount almost half the GDP of Albania.

HAITI: FROM THIRD WORLD TO FIFTH HELL

By: Felipe Argote

The Arawaks, the Tahini and some other Indian groups moved free at the island called La Española when Christopher Columbus arrived from Puerto Palos in 1942. He thought he had reach some island close to India where he intended to buy spices in such demand in Europe that were worth the journey of discovery forn the Spanish crown. Very soon these aboriginal groups had disappeared product of the exploitation of the Spanish who enslaved them for gold and then in the sugar plantations by the large number of diseases that Europeans led to what the natives did not have antibodies.

Then it began the forced immigration into slavery of thousands of black people from Africa. A hundred years after Columbus arrived; France takes over the western part of the island and filled it with slaves. There where a ratio of 20 slaves to one white. Forced them to work to produce sugar in large plantations where the slaves had an average life of five years from the time of entering into plantations by the brutal working conditions.

In 1801 Mackandall, a slave who was maimed by a sugar mill in a plantation started the uprising of black slaves. After many victories he was arrested and taken to the square to be burned alive in the presence of thousands of slaves taken there on purpose to serve as a warning. But shortly before burning Mackandall, as claimed in mind the thousands of slaves, he become a butterfly. Even today many butterflies are Mackandall in Haiti and that he, despite his death, was in all the successive uprisings of slaves. Then Boukman, a Jamaican, met a group of runaway slaves who escaped from the thousands of plantations is declared leader of the revolt against slavery after the voodoo ceremony of Bois Caiman, and finally beheaded by the frenchs. It was then followed in leadership by one of the generals, Francois Toussaint Louverture, the grandson of a slave brought from what is now the little known Republic of Benin in West Africa, born on a plantation and he learned to read and write and knew a lot of medicinal plants. In 1793 he proclaimed the fight against slavery that had been abolished by the French revolution but not in its colonies. His proclamation read:

Brothers and friends: I Toussaint Louverture, perhaps the knowledge of my name have come to you. I started the revenge of my race. I want the freedom and equality prevails in Santo Domingo. Work there. Unite, brothers, and fight with me for the same cause. I uproot the tree of slavery.

Your humble and obedient servant, Toussaint Louverture, General of the armies of the king, for the public good.

This occurs in a time of confrontation of different social groups: The grand blanc, the petit blanc, the mulattos, the blacks slaves and the maroons. The day of the proclamation of Toussaint, Commissioner of the French Republic to Haiti Sonthonax declared free the slaves and called them to face the white landowners who wanted to proclaim the independence of the island with the support of England. Six months later the French Constituent Assembly ratified the abolition of slavery. But with the arrival of Napoleon Bonaparte years after he tried to reinsert the slave system on the island so he sent in 1801 25,000 soldiers who were repelled by an army of 51,000 of Louverture for two years. With the ruse of wanting to negotiate an agreement the French held captive to Louverture and is sent to a cell in northern France where he died of starvation. But Napoleon could not recover the island. One of the closest general of Louverture, Jean Jack Desalines not only defeats militarily the French at the Battle of Vertieres in 1804 but also declared the independence of the island of Santo Domingo and resumes its original name, Haiti. It is the first and only case in history where a slave revolt triumphed after Spartacus in Rome 100 years before Christ; although the latter was finally defeated in contrast to Haiti that became the second nation to achieve independence in America and the first in the world that slaves built a country.

However, as a country governed and populated by blacks at 95% the country was not recognized as fast as it was the United States. Moreover, France recognizes Haitian independence in 1826, 22 years later, in exchange for recognition of compensation of 150 million gold francs. According to the great Uruguayan writer Eduardo Hughes Galeano, it is equivalent today of $ 21.700 million. They complete payment in 1938. According to the World Bank the GDP income per capita in Haiti is $500 per year or less than $42 per month.

The new rulers could not be worse than those who enslaved them but were not much better than the rulers of the other American countries. Most of the post-independence rulers proclaimed themselves emperors and kings. Desalines proclaimed himself emperor after independence. One of his successors after his death declared himself King Henri Christophe and invented a court of 4 princes, 8 dukes, 22 counts, 37 barons and 14 gentlemen. At the end of his mandate he killed himself and his son was was murdered by the mob that lynched him to eliminate the throne. Then the self-declared king Faustino I ruled for twelve years. In 1915 Haiti was occupied by the United States only as part of their military strategy. They left the country just as impoverished as they found it almost 20 years later. In 1957 the power is given to Francois Duvalier, known as Papa Doc, the son of immigrants from Martinique, supported by the weapons given by the U.S. Army under the complacent gaze of the outside world. Four years after Duvalier develops an election where the electoral court declared Duvalier took a total of 1,320,000 votes in favor and not a single dissenting vote. Then he was declared president for life and appointed his son Jean Claude as his successor at the approach of death. Jean Claude Duvalier called Baby Doc took the government. He governs at the age of 19 years, from 1971 to 1986, until it is overthrown and accomplished exile under French protection it receives in its territory with all the guarantees of a ruler.

Then military coups happen until a Catholic priest named Jean-Bertrand Aristide is Haiti's democratically elected president in 1990 only to be ousted a year later and then reinstated in the presidential chair by a U.S. invasion shortly before the expiry of his term. Again in a very low voting turnout (less than 10% of the population eligible to vote) is re-elected Aristide. It felt different than his first rule. At this moment he wanted to become the populist leader who expected much of the population that elected him the first time and that at least they were confused to see that Aristide was placed on the presidential chair for a U.S. invasion, those who had sustained the hated Duvalier and their paramilitary gangs called Tonton Macoutes, the Haitian term bogeyman with which to frighten children. Aristide left turn and got very close to Chavez and Cuba so it is deposed by a military coup backed by France and the United States and sent to South Africa. Haiti is currently governed by Rene Preval who was elected president in 2006. Preval was mate Bernard Aristide but turned away from him after the last campaign.

New elections should be in February this year but by conditions on which the country is after the largest earthquake in the Caribbean in the last 200 years is possible to be postponed. You can see that to move from third world to fifth hell took many centuries.

THE SUBWAY

By: Felipe Argote

Like most Panamanians I am an expert in common sense. Also on the subject of transport, without detracting from the engineer Robert Roy and all those who are better educated in this discipline. In my view the center of gravity of the problem of transportation in Panama is the method of piecework. This method means that bus drivers must complete an amount of money to be paid on the owner of the bus and then cover their own costs for gasoline, bus washing and salary of the secretary or other expenses then what remains is his profit of the day. This makes they drive like crazy hornbills for the passengers with danger of dead for passengers by and passengers. In addition to these, drivers suffer extreme exploitation because they don’t have social security, vacations or retirement.

The elimination of this system transforming drivers to employees is clearly desirable. Having said the above I say that not so any change will solve the problem of thousands of workers who must get up at 4 o´clock in the morning to catch a bus beyond the city periphery to arrive on time for their job and then have to travel like sardines to departure time to get home no earlier than 8 at night.

Both the previous and the current government response were creating a new bus system. The government of Martin Torrijos was pushing for the purchase of new buses by the government to put up for tender the administration of these buses. Additionally set the replacement of current Red Devils by paying $ 25,000 each bus owner to remove the system unit. The new government is proposing something very similar but unlike the previous government, buses are owned by the concessionaire, not the state.

On the other side there is the subway, a massive mobilization of passengers who would be the backbone of the new proposal. The metro bus is a ready solution while the new metro system Martinelli's government during his election campaign promised to have in operation in just three years.

I find it totally misconceived the extent of the metro bus. I think buses should not only be owned by the state but also its operation, as in most modern cities. For this to be effective as well and include in the solution the problem of mobilizing students who should get home at 10:00 at night because they pay half fares so they are now restricted from entering the bus until they business is the hornbills, or when they have mobilized most of the people who pay full fare. This system to be effective it must be subsidized by the state for elementary student’s free travel and high school pay half fares. If the operation is private, the state must grant to the owner of the concession which is expensive because not only subsidizes the cost but also the profit of the of the operator. In addition to the new bus plan will be owned by the concessionaire, giving great weight not only economic but political. If there is any dispute the operator is able to paralyze the country more effectively than the SUNTRACS and educators and doctors all together.

On the other hand the national government has announced that the metro is not longer the metro, it is now only the first step of the origtinal, and no longer comes from Tocumen and Mañanitas, where is most clear the problem of mobilizing thousands of workers that not enjoy quality of life because spend half of his day time riding a bus, because only the metro will only come from the area of The Andes to the city center.

This means that in addition to the great discomfort that will determine the construction of this system, the vast majority of residents on the outskirts which hopeful who dreamed of a mass transit system, would now know they are not in the project anymore because they will only travel inside the city Subway metro. I am not saying it's wrong that Metro gets to the Gran Terminal de Albrook, just seems to me that the government and its experts should think again. They should consider that the first phase of construction should begin from Chilibre or Mañanitas and leave people in minutes on the edge of town, perhaps in the Andes or the entrance to San Miguelito, where there could be a bus terminal that disperses people to different parts of downtown. The second stage would then be the best looking for publicity building in the downtown. This, in my point of view, would be the smartest decision, except for a better criterion.