tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-307461032024-03-13T10:49:45.356-05:00My HeyDay<i> Sometimes I think it is my mission to bring faith to the faithless, and doubt to the faithful</i>Alex Guerrerohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03565492189724849527noreply@blogger.comBlogger239125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30746103.post-64262277821465450632011-03-10T12:04:00.010-06:002011-03-10T13:33:52.948-06:00¿Que Hacer, España?El presidente de Mercadona, <span style="font-weight: bold;">Juan Roig</span>, dice hoy en <a href="http://www.elpais.com/articulo/economia/Juan/Roig/afirma/peor/crisis/llegar/elpepueco/20110310elpepueco_8/Tes">una entrevista e</a><a href="http://www.elpais.com/articulo/economia/Juan/Roig/afirma/peor/crisis/llegar/elpepueco/20110310elpepueco_8/Tes">n <span style="font-weight: bold;">El País</span></a>: "Solo saldremos cuando el <span style="font-weight: bold;">nivel de productividad se corresponda con nuestro nivel de vida</span>. Tenemos que producir un cambio cultural. Nos hemos pasado 20 pueblos."<br /><br />En otras palabras, lo que Juan Roig está sugiriendo es que nuestro nivel de <span style="font-style: italic;">renta per capita</span> se tendrá que (se va a...) ajustar a nuestro <span style="font-style: italic;">nivel de productividad</span>. Aunque, como en <a style="font-style: italic;" href="http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rebeli%C3%B3n_en_la_granja">Rebelión en la Granja</a>, parece que el ajuste será igual para todos, pero <span style="font-style: italic;">más igual</span> para algunos que para otros.<br /><br />En la gráfica de abajo observamos como la renta per capita en algunas partes de España se ha alejado por encima de la línea de regresión (que sería donde "deberíamos" estar), aunque no en demasía.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ToisU8BWEEQ/TXkanV11RYI/AAAAAAAAA1k/1kZDdzylVLE/s1600/product.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 370px; height: 400px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ToisU8BWEEQ/TXkanV11RYI/AAAAAAAAA1k/1kZDdzylVLE/s400/product.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5582522476282594690" border="0" /></a><br />Existen varias razones para ello. El crecimiento de la renta per capita por encima de la productividad del trabajo se puede deber a, entre otros factores, la productividad del capital (<span style="font-style: italic;">burbuja immobiliaria</span>) o el impacto del cambio tecnológico en la productividad de otros factores (por ejemplo, el costo de las infrastructuras básicas de comunicación ha caído enormemente).<br /><br />Desde antes de la crisis, aparecían esporádicos artículos en prensa recordándonos el deterioro de nuestros niveles de productividad (<a href="http://www.cincodias.com/articulo/economia/Espana-tercer-pais-peor-rendimiento-hora-trabajada/20070417cdscdieco_3/">Cinco Días, 2007</a>). Y eso que la calidad de la fuerza laboral en España no ha parado de aumentar desde los 1980s. En la tabla de abajo vemos el notable incremento en el nivel educativo alcanzado por la fuerza laboral, hasta 2004 <span style="font-size:78%;">(<a href="http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&cd=9&ved=0CF0QFjAI&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.oecd-ilibrary.org%2Feconomics%2Fproductivity-measurement-and-analysis_9789264044616-en&rct=j&q=spanish%20productivity%20data&ei=UxN5TYG2AfKL0QH_usjYAw&usg=AFQjCNG0mI36Dlg95mnDBDVsuJqek5mX7w&sig2=tyIkFZ0yCXua8vH3T4fYbw&cad=rja">fuente</a> de los datos que siguen)</span>. La fuerza laboral en los años 2000 alcanzó su mayor nivel de calidad de las últimas tres décadas, y eso en paralelo a un deterioro constante de la productividad en el país.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-jJiNyvO2zIY/TXkcfw_SyKI/AAAAAAAAA1s/-heOt0-uz98/s1600/education.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 167px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-jJiNyvO2zIY/TXkcfw_SyKI/AAAAAAAAA1s/-heOt0-uz98/s400/education.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5582524545154336930" border="0" /></a>Si no es la calidad de los trabajadores, quedan tres culpables posibles:<br /><br />a) <span style="font-weight: bold;">el uso que se les da,</span> siendo empleados en sectores de la economía que tienen poco valor añadido (p.ej. inmobiliario) y que son poco intensivos en tecnologia (de modo que se benefician poco del cambio tecnologico y ofrecen pocos trabajos muy productivos en ese campo). Abajo la radiografia de como es la estructura española, con un incremento muy pequeño (30.75% al 32.06%) de trabajadores empleados en sectores de la economía que se benefician de las nuevas tecnologías (ICT), de 1985 a 2004.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ngT4fKX4OvE/TXkfCQvpWFI/AAAAAAAAA10/Qc-_dfmSTCs/s1600/Sectors.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 377px; height: 400px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ngT4fKX4OvE/TXkfCQvpWFI/AAAAAAAAA10/Qc-_dfmSTCs/s400/Sectors.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5582527336817449042" border="0" /></a>La consecuencia, si se contrastan los datos de arriba con la información sobre productividad laboral que se muestra abajo, es que los sectores que podrían ser potencialmente más productivos (ver abajo la productividad comparada entre sectores de la economía) no han ganado el peso suficiente en nuestra economía, mientras que sectores poco productivos -como la construcción, el comercio, las reparaciones o el turismo hotelero- se han mantenido como bases de nuestro modelo productivo. Incluso entre los sectores más tecnológicos (ICT), los trabajadores han sido arrastrados principalmente hacia Servicios a los Negocios (<span style="font-style: italic;">Business Services</span>), cuya productividad se ha estancado, e incluso declinado, en estas dos decadas.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-4sielPMLwVI/TXkfvteUuRI/AAAAAAAAA18/Ty1eZ5Mwj4s/s1600/productivity%2BSpain.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 383px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-4sielPMLwVI/TXkfvteUuRI/AAAAAAAAA18/Ty1eZ5Mwj4s/s400/productivity%2BSpain.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5582528117623535890" border="0" /></a>b) La otra posibilidad es la tan manida<span style="font-weight: bold;"> falta de "emprendimiento" e innovación</span> de nuestra <s>juventud</s> sociedad. Se puede argumentar que son razones culturales: mientras en Estados Unidos una amiga con un sueño (<a href="http://whenwegrewupmovie.com/">hacer una película</a>) ha organizado un acto de recaudación de fondos (<span style="font-style: italic;">fund-raising</span>) y ha montado una sociedad para <a href="http://whenwegrewupmovie.com/?page_id=10">producir la película</a> y, quien sabe, tal vez hacerse un hueco en un festival indie, de ahí a la crítica semanal de Roger Ebert en el <span style="font-style: italic;">Chicago Sun Times<span style="font-style: italic;">, </span></span>la lee un productor de Hollywood y decide escalarla o tal vez contratarla para una producción mayor... en España gente en similar situación, con los mismos sueños, miraría en las páginas del Gobierno (nacional, autonómico) en busca de una subvención. Puede que mi amiga fracase o tenga éxito y suerte, pero en ningún momento creo que le haya pasado por su cabeza la opción de ser subvencionada.<br /><br />Como soy fóbico de las explicaciones culturalistas, más bien pienso que es una combinación de dificultades institucionales y regulatorias (montar una empresa en EEUU cuesta $200 y esperar 10 días a formalizarla, versus 3000 o 4000 euros en España y más de 3 meses de burocracia), el desincentivo que produce conocer que se dan tantas subvenciones por todo (¡frente a premios a la iniciativa individual!) y, sobre todo, qué hace tu grupo de pares, de amigos, marcan el comportamiento a medio plazo de los individuos. Sin duda, si tus amigos no tienden a tomar este tipo de riesgos, te sentirás menos motivado a hacerlo.<br /><br /><br />c) La tercera razón es una combinación de las dos anteriores. En un mundo donde la gente es aversa al riesgo (por imitación y comportamiento de rebaño, y por desincentivos institucionales), <span style="font-weight: bold;">el capital invierte en "lo más seguro" </span>(vivienda). Cuando lo "más seguro" deja de serlo, reinvierte en oro y otras cuestiones, pero le cuesta invertir en innovación. Cuando esa dinámica se repite en el tiempo, tu economía empieza a parecerse a la española, con una miopía inversionista que sólo invierte capital en sectores poco arriesgados, pero poco productivos en el largo plazo.<br /><br />Este cóctel es nocivo. Cuando estas tres fuerzas mencionadas arriba se combinan, a la gente que sale del bachillerato y la universidad le ofrecen principalmente trabajos en sectores poco productivos, y no le estimulan a buscarse la vida con su talento y capacidad emprendedora. Dada la alta cualificación de la masa laboral actual, el título universitario en cuestión deja de ser muy relevante en marcar diferencias salariales, y los salarios tienden a ecualizarse (lo cuál no es malo, necesariamente). Esto hace que los trabajadores no tengan demasiados incentivos para moverse hacia sectores más productivos de la economía, donde las oportunidades de innovar y mostrar tu talento sean mayores.<br /><br />Y la dinámica que conduce a los trabajadores hacia los sectores menos productivos no hace más que perpetuar el modelo.<br /><br />Se pueden salvar las Cajas de Ahorro, estimular la economía con infrastructura urbana y de comunicaciones, favorecer que la gente aprenda inglés, etc. Pero el punto básico de por qué el modelo hace aguas no está siendo afrontado por nadie.<br /><br />La solución del presidente de Mercadona es, simplemente, dejar que el nivel de ingreso caiga hasta el nivel de productividad actual. Esto se está haciendo por la vía del desempleo, sobre todo, castigando a los segmentos más vulnerables de la sociedad (mujeres, jovenes, immigrantes), y muy modestamente, por la vía de los salarios (los empleados del sector público y privado han visto sus salarios congelarse). Sin embargo, me concederéis que es una estrategia de supervivencia a largo plazo un poco pésima...Alex Guerrerohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03565492189724849527noreply@blogger.com17tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30746103.post-78190734715862720002009-10-07T21:04:00.005-05:002009-10-07T21:35:42.488-05:00By doing nothing..."And you can also commit injustice by doing nothing". I read this sentence today and kept my thoughts playing with it for a while. The news are packed with stories about governments around the world trying to fix the misfortunes of this trembling capitalist-consummerist system, to agree on how to stop climate change, on how to -in general- save us from our homemade monsters.<br /><br />The European Left, that oxymoron empty of new ideas, of any new answer to the ills of the world, is unable to <span style="font-weight: bold;">dream</span>. It is trapped by the fear of change, by commitments with the "moderates" -who are they? where do they hide?-, by a comfortable rethoric of social liberalism -more gay rights! fight climate change! end the war!- unable to think big about the human being, about the human experience, about what the hell makes us genuinely happy. Nowadays, nobody would be so blind to see that the system we have created, where we are designed to grow, work for megalocorporations -or their subsidiaries, produce, consume, e-consume, multiply and die is forgetting the bottom line of human life: we weren't meant to be connected to this Matrix. We were meant to enjoy from the simple pleasures, the company of our beloved, the tribal sense of community around the bonfire in a starred night, the feeling of the wind and the light rain in the face, the pleasure of our hands smelling to wet ground and fruits after harvesting them. The joy of enjoying, slowly, from the feast of meats and greens, from the company of others, from their careness, from their desire, from the music bringing us back memories of good old times... But the European left, and the left around the world, doesn't have any imagination, and they shameless stamp a seal of approval to a system that commits many injustices every day, the biggest one being to curtail our right to happiness. "And you can also commit injustice by doing nothing"...<br /><br /><br />-----------------<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;">"Don't ever forget these things:<br /><br />The nature of the world.<br />Your nature.<br />How you relate to the world.<br />What proportion of it you make up.<br />That you are part of nature, and no one can prevent you<br />from speaking and acting in harmony with it, always."<br />(Marcus Aurelius)<br /></div>Alex Guerrerohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03565492189724849527noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30746103.post-38245349228303631612009-07-15T15:27:00.003-05:002009-07-15T15:31:34.711-05:00Time Flies...An <a href="http://www.scribd.com/doc/16264828/The-timeemotion-paradox">excerpt</a> from a study just-released:<br /><blockquote>One of the greatest paradoxes in the field of time psychology is the <span style="font-style: italic;">time–emotion paradox</span>. Over the last few decades, an increasing volume of data has been identified demonstrating the accuracy with which humans are able to estimate time. Confronted with this amazing ability, psychologists have supposed that humans, as other animals, possess a specific mechanism that allows them to measure time...<br /><br />However, under the influence of emotions, humans can be extremely inaccurate in their time judgements (Droit-Volet & Meck 2007). For example, the passage of time seems to vary depending on whether the subject is in an unpleasant or pleasant context. It drags when being criticized by the boss but flies by when discussing with our friends. That is the time–emotion paradox: why given that we possess a sophisticated time measurement mechanism, are we so inaccurate in our temporal judgements when experiencing emotions?</blockquote>Droit-Volet, Gil (July 2009) "<a href="http://www.scribd.com/doc/16264828/The-timeemotion-paradox">The Time-Emotion Paradox</a>". <span style="font-style: italic;">Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci.</span> 2009 Jul 12;364(1525):1943-53.Alex Guerrerohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03565492189724849527noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30746103.post-69850381453467990922009-07-12T20:08:00.005-05:002009-07-12T20:28:42.794-05:00Democracy ain't that bad, afterallAn excerpt from Barry Schwartz -the author of "<a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=zutxr7rGc_QC&dq=The+Paradox+of+Choice:+Why+More+is+Less&printsec=frontcover&source=bn&hl=es&ei=oolaSq_3JZS2NvCFgUM&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=4">The Paradox of Choice: Why More is Less</a>":<br /><blockquote>"[People] had very low expectations. They had no particular expectation when they only came in one flavor. When they came in 100 flavors, damn it, one of them should've been perfect. And what I got was good, but it wasn't perfect. And so I compared what I got to what I expected, and what I got was disappointing in comparison to what I expected. Adding options to people's lives can't help but increase the expectations people have about how good those options will be. And what this is going to produce is less satisfaction with results, even when they're good results".</blockquote>And instead of a pair jeans -his example- think in candidates and political parties in new democracies, and what do we expect from them and what do we get. Maybe is this why so many older generations develop that sort of nostalgia for the years of Franco, the Mexican PRI or the PCUS?<br /><br />Here <a href="http://www.ted.com/talks/barry_schwartz_on_the_paradox_of_choice.html">his TED Talk</a> about how more choices make us less happy. He couldn't conclude any other way: "the secret to happiness is<span style="font-style: italic;"> low expectations</span>".Alex Guerrerohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03565492189724849527noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30746103.post-32003845505731704032009-06-30T10:11:00.007-05:002009-06-30T12:24:48.742-05:00Reflections about Development Aid"<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Blue-Sweater-Bridging-Between-Interconnected/dp/1594869154/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1246324259&sr=8-1/marginalrevol-20">Philanthropy can appeal to people who want to be loved more than they want to make a difference</a>", writes Jacqueline Novogratz , after many years wandering through Africa, continent where she arrived as a naive aid-idealist. And after facing during decades the limits, contradictions and corruption plaguing development aid, evolved to an aid-realist - at least avoiding to become another aid-cynical.<br /><br />Novogratz also says many other interesting truths:<br /><br />"It is so often the people who know the greatest suffering--the poor and most vulnerable--who are the most resilient, the ones able to derive happiness and shared joy from the simplest pleasures", and continues in a pessimistic tone, "That same resilience, however, can manifest itself in passivity, fatalism, a resignation to the difficulties of life that allows injustice and inequity to strengthen and grow..."<br /><br />Aid agencies and organizations are frequently more doing experiments -and failing- than being effective. Add that there is no accountability for their actions, and the flux of knowledge between them is overrun by competition and egos. Said that, things may and should change in the way they operate... or they should disappear. Critical is <span style="font-weight: bold;">how knowledge is shared and managed</span>. For this reason, I am pretty optimistic with this new initiative from the social entrepreneurs of <a href="http://www.ashoka.org/">Ashoka</a>, in order to solve the chronic ineffectiveness of development aid: in <a style="font-weight: bold;" href="http://www.changemakers.com/">Changemakers.com</a> they collectively look at social problems and discuss and propose actions to solve it, one problem at a time. This is a good start, coming from below.Alex Guerrerohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03565492189724849527noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30746103.post-63459474633096745022009-05-19T13:12:00.015-05:002009-05-19T14:06:58.377-05:00Uruguay: Anatomy of a Beautiful ReformFor more than a century and a half, <span style="font-style: italic;">Partido Colorado</span> and Partido Nacional ruled <span style="font-weight: bold;">Uruguay. </span>But with the victory of Tabare Vazquez in the 2005 presidential elections, the left party <span style="font-style: italic;">Broad Front</span> took office with a long-pending redistributive agenda.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">One of the first priorities of the new cabinet was </span><span style="font-weight: bold;">to introduce a fairer tax reform</span>. In Uruguay, as it is usually the case of small nations, equality is a highly ranked social value. And it is also <a href="http://www.eclac.org/publicaciones/xml/3/20063/lcg2120i_Kaztman.pdf">highly correlated with satisfaction with democracy</a> across the region. Even if Uruguay's poverty line and inequality levels (0,45) are the lowest in Latin America, the long <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporatism#In_social_science">corporatist tradition</a> of the country, tweaked by the liberalization in trade and capital unleashed in the 1990s, emphasized an unfair distribution of the tax burden, coming mainly from [formal] workers' shoulders and poor households' pockets.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Same tax burden, but a more equitable b</span><span style="font-weight: bold;">urden distribution</span><br /><br />Tabare's government wanted to increase vertical and horizontal equality of the tax system, and to do so he had to reduce consumption taxes -which affects mainly to the poor- and increase the weight and progressiveness of income taxes.<br /><br /><ul><li><span style="font-weight: bold;">Income tax levels became more progressive</span> and went up for the richest, especially the 10% richest, who saw a 150% increase compared to the previous system:</li></ul><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_GdkpfCJS4cM/ShL_uLjF0jI/AAAAAAAAAmM/0_NmWj766K8/s1600-h/uruguay-incometax.GIF"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 208px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_GdkpfCJS4cM/ShL_uLjF0jI/AAAAAAAAAmM/0_NmWj766K8/s400/uruguay-incometax.GIF" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5337609677226496562" border="0" /></a><br /><ul><li><span style="font-weight: bold;">Consumption taxes went down</span> for everybody, especially the poorest, who consume most or all their income:</li></ul><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_GdkpfCJS4cM/ShL_guN7API/AAAAAAAAAmE/oVYNrl9_3a0/s1600-h/uruguay-indirect.GIF"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 207px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_GdkpfCJS4cM/ShL_guN7API/AAAAAAAAAmE/oVYNrl9_3a0/s400/uruguay-indirect.GIF" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5337609446014779634" border="0" /></a><br /><ul><li><span style="font-weight: bold;">The tax burden became fairer</span>, more efficient, less economically disturbing, and more Western European. Inequality post-tax and poverty levels dropped a little bit, but the whole system provided future governments with the right tools to raise more revenues if they are willing to expand further social policies. At the end of the day, <a href="http://www.un.org/esa//desa/ousg/articles/pdf/incomedist.htm">equality is mainly achieved through social expenditure</a>, not taxation --but you need to have the money first:</li></ul><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_GdkpfCJS4cM/ShL_YqeRR8I/AAAAAAAAAl8/hBWHqroSk2k/s1600-h/globaluruguay.GIF"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 233px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_GdkpfCJS4cM/ShL_YqeRR8I/AAAAAAAAAl8/hBWHqroSk2k/s400/globaluruguay.GIF" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5337609307570653122" border="0" /></a><br />The reform revealed the scheme of <span style="font-weight: bold;">winners and losers</span>: businessmen protested, and the most negatively affected groups demonstrated, mainly medical doctors, lawyers and other very well-paid liberal professionals. But again, a sense that equality was a social value to be pursued in Uruguay mitigated their resistance, adding to the countermeasures of this tax reform: a general improvement in the quality of government-provided services, especially universal healthcare.<br /><br />Beautifully done, Tabare.Alex Guerrerohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03565492189724849527noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30746103.post-24215138889373775412009-05-18T22:35:00.005-05:002009-05-18T23:08:38.359-05:00Shame: The Social Emotion<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_GdkpfCJS4cM/ShIvl68CgbI/AAAAAAAAAl0/obUGJ578ih8/s1600-h/shame2.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 302px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_GdkpfCJS4cM/ShIvl68CgbI/AAAAAAAAAl0/obUGJ578ih8/s400/shame2.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5337380836910203314" border="0" /></a>An interesting excerpt:<br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><blockquote>"Shame is <span style="font-style: italic;">the </span>social emotion because it is the psychological force underpinning both conformity and obedience to authority. On the pressure to conform, we can look to Asch's (1952) experiments, in which each person around the table was asked to say which of two lines projected on a screen was the same lenght as a third. All except one of the people were stooges in cahoots with the expermienter and had agreed to give the wrong answer. The point of the experiment was to see what the one naive experimental subject would say when it came to his or her turn to say which of the two lines was equal to the third --after everyone else had expressed the same (false) opinion. After these experiments had been repeated a number of times with a succession of subjects, it was found that a large proportion of people tended to conform to the group opinion rather than give an answer which set them apart from others. When asked afterward to explain the answers they had given, people said they feared looking stupid, or thought others would think they "couldn't see straight." But interestingly, some of the people who conformed most appeared to be quite unaware that they had responded to any kind of group pressure" <span style="font-size:85%;">[1]</span><br /></blockquote></div>It is not surprising that many people frequently --and undoubtlessly, eventually all of us-- give up our intelligence to feel that group comfort. And to accept obvious lies. Shame takes many forms: feeling foolish, stupid, ridiculous, inadequate, defective, incompetent, awkward, exposed, vulnerable, insecure, helpless... but it invariably produces a society of weak citizens, of quasi-human beings, who give up their precious singularity and their ability to bright. I don't understand why combating the feeling of social shame is not a crucial theme in every school.<br /><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><br />[1] Wilkinson, R. </span><span style="font-size:85%;">(2005)</span><span style="font-size:85%;"> '<span style="font-style: italic;">The impact of inequality: how to make sick societies healthier</span>' </span>Alex Guerrerohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03565492189724849527noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30746103.post-74917831458483571722009-05-17T21:04:00.003-05:002009-05-17T21:57:09.441-05:00The Spanish MeltdownSpain’s Economy shrinks at a 7.2% annual rate until March 2009. Here an excerpt:<br /><p></p><blockquote><p>Despite some recent positive development (decrease in interest rates and prices, fiscal stimulus measures, slight improvement in confidence, ECB purchase of cédulas hipotecarias…), Spain will not recover even as other economies begin to breathe again. The worst year undoubtedly could be 2011, and the unemployment rate by that stage could reach anywhere between 25% and 30% of the labour force if you accept the March 17.5% number as good.</p> Bottom line, a complete nightmare, with the only bright spot being imminent control of the political system being assumed in Brussels and Frankfurt, since along with the economy the political “automatic stabiliser” system also seems to be broken. </blockquote>Here is <a href="http://www.blogger.com/Spain%C3%A2%C2%80%C2%99s%20Economy%20Shrinks%20At%20A%207.2%%20Annual%20Rate%20In%20The%20First%20Three%20Months%20Of%202009">the complete country-briefing</a>. It's plainly scary, even if in my opinion this analysis is misrepresenting the strong interdependency of Spain and the other European economies: as soon as the European demand will recover, factories making pieces integrated in continental supply lines (i.e. cars, planes, appliances) will restart production in Spain and tourists will flow in again.<br /><br />But still, the idea of being above 20% unemployment for such a long period of time is frightening.Alex Guerrerohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03565492189724849527noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30746103.post-45590873612528890352009-05-12T13:56:00.004-05:002009-05-12T14:09:37.088-05:00Brazil Facts of the Day<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_GdkpfCJS4cM/SgnGcfVncGI/AAAAAAAAAls/ik_7Ng8mLjw/s1600-h/brazil+tax.GIF"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 303px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_GdkpfCJS4cM/SgnGcfVncGI/AAAAAAAAAls/ik_7Ng8mLjw/s400/brazil+tax.GIF" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5335013426347864162" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_GdkpfCJS4cM/SgnGcfVncGI/AAAAAAAAAls/ik_7Ng8mLjw/s1600-h/brazil+tax.GIF"> </a>In <span style="font-weight: bold;">Brazil</span>, because people pay very high taxes when buying stuff -indirect taxes- and income taxation is so low and barely progressive,<span style="font-weight: bold;"> a very poor family will pay 33%</span> of their total income in taxes,<span style="font-weight: bold;"> meanwhile the super rich will have to pay just 23%</span>.<br /><br />In <span style="font-weight: bold;">Brazil</span>, income inequality has historically been among <a href="http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa4000/is_200407/ai_n9453975/">the highest in the world</a>, despite some modest improvements under Lula.<br /><br />In <span style="font-weight: bold;">Brazil</span>, several attempts to reform this crazy tax system since 1995 have repeatedly failed to be enacted. In every attempt, party discipline evaporated and some members of the Parliament switched to the other side of the aisle just before the vote, or there were "sudden" corruption scandals in the media discrediting the reformist government of the time.<br /><br />Write your own conspiracy theory down here...Alex Guerrerohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03565492189724849527noreply@blogger.com23tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30746103.post-58169795151271183022009-04-25T07:03:00.000-05:002009-04-25T07:36:11.838-05:0030Aqui otra vez... Una puerta de embarque, un empleado de Airtrain hablando rapido acerca del orden de acceso al avion, esta vez a Miami. Se supone que viajo alli a ver a mi buen amigo Galo, a aprovechar mis ultimos dias de vacaciones... Pero especialmente a celebrar de manera inusual mi 30 aniversario. Miami, playas, sol, amigos.. suena bien. Se supone, en el mindset yankee, que debes de hacer algo espectacular... <br /><br /> Pasan veteranos de la II Guerra Mundial, muy ancianos, y la gente aplaude. Otra americanada. Me pregunto si esos hombres tuvieron opcion de no ir a la guerra, aunque fuera justa, cuando fueron jovenes. Si pudieron escoger defender la patria de otra forma. Si los que no regresaron merecen un doble aplauso...<br /><br />Siempre crei que la edad concede mayor experiencia, pero al borde de los 30 sigo cometiendo las mismas tonterias, tal vez mas: la edad da temeridad. Sigo confiando en cosas tan naives como que los buenos sentimientos, desnudos, siempre abren la puerta al alma de los demas.. que estupida presuncion.<br /><br />Casi llegado a los 30, me doy cuenta de cuan seguro he estado siempre de que era lo correcto, y de que, sin embargo, esos mapas para pilotar la existencia, aprendidos y copiados en la adolescencia y despues, sirven realmente de poco para sobrevivir al mundo real, mucho mas duro de lo que nos anticiparon. Ya no estoy seguro de nada, y menos de mi mismo. Va a ser toda una aventura redescubrirlo todo en los proximos anhos. <br /><br />'Entrando en pista', anuncia el piloto...<br /><br />De momento, yo he vuelto a llenar el suelo de una habitacion de suenos rotos... otra vez...<br /><br />Que torpe...Alex Guerrerohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03565492189724849527noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30746103.post-59167337106322057412009-03-27T12:14:00.012-05:002009-03-27T12:40:49.751-05:00Epilogue... After a Trip to the TropicsAll the human hopes condensed in a hundred faces. Maybe all men got one big soul everybody's a part of; all faces are the same man. The smartest person I have ever met said once to me that "life is better measure by experiences -and friends- than by time", and I could say that it has been the case this month. I barely remember the distant day when I left Washington, bringing lots of hope and anxiety as my luggage. Four weeks later, I just can say that there is another world, and I have been there. The emotional implication with the people of these two small countries has been far more intense than anything I could experience in my last three years in the US. I know that. I guess that dreams, like anguish, bring people together. And suffering equals everybody. How did we lose all the good that was given us? Let it slip away. Scattered careless... But I learned a few things in my time here:<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Be Empathic:</span> I come back convinced about that indisputable truth. That we are nothing if we only care about ourselves, self-focused and just developing a earthly shrine dedicated to our ego. Popularity, professional success, beauty, all those things are meaningless temporary achievements that nobody will care about in few years. Wrong fights. Et in Arcadia ego... We really are not ourselves until we don't come in touch, empathically, with the world we live in.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Care about Democracy:</span> I also bring along a dozen of doubts and "research questions" around our basic idea of Democracy. Political Science still desperately needs to come back to the fundamentals and redefine the concept. Robert Dahl, a pope in Political Science and a good old Yale professor, was always very sad because of our constant struggle to just agree about this basic definition. But the fact is that when we come to places like Honduras and El Salvador, and we observe the workings of their political systems, formally a democracy, one misses so many pieces that would funnel representation from the citizens to the government, that it's hard to accept this sort of liberal democracy in the general definition. Politicians struggle to survive in power here, in a constant fight between elites, but just for the sake of gaining the grace of the economically powerful establishment. Nonetheless, you would note that either Europe or the US are not so different. Only, from time to time, as it was the case of El Salvador this month, a powerful grass-roots movement allied with economic turbulences can break the pattern and bring some hope. Even if it remains to be seen how long-lasting this change in the rules of the game is going to be until the new elite is co-opted. But in a regular democracy, real alternation should be the rule and not the exception. Those who do not see the dangers in a democracy with a very unbalanced representation are just blind. Even Machiavelli would acknowledge that. The Prince should not just exert fear, but also love, in his fellow subjects, and he has to avoid the monopolistic rule of any special group. The Prince, in our present time, is us, the voters, the People.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Worry about Development:</span> My optimism and pessimism about Development and development professionals grew in parallel in this trip. I still observe, and suffer, what I call the "bureaucracies of development", those international and national agencies blahbling the development jargon we are used to and caring, mainly, about procedures. Becoming the Kafkian nightmares they were not meant to be, due to the high expectations all we put on them. But the hope is that a myriad, million-strong army of community organizers, teachers, healthcare trainers, Jesuits!, volunteers and especially, that [still] small elite of development professionals -hey, Pax!- who want to transform the way this work is performed to a more complete, jargon-free, human-based, multi-disciplinary and efficient discipline. They just can succeed at some point.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Hunt Friends:</span> Someone said that when you gain a friend, you find a treasure. There is something magical in connecting with another person, enjoying his/her conversation, sense of humor, views of the world, and stories from the past. It's like two trains running at the same speed and coming from different tracks, and at some magical point those tracks become parallel pathways and both trains have time to spend together in their trip. Friends come and go this way, but many of them, those who shared that deep connection with us, inexorably become a share of our memories and soul. And said that, traveling alone is a great way to meet people and make some random, few good friends. There is something exotic in being a foreigner which other people find enticing, and they are naturally open to conversation. One day, I remember, I was in the balcony of a café in Jewel Key looking at the sea, and this old woman, Shannon, came next to me. We started talking about how would life look like in this narrow, overpopulated key, and five minutes later I was telling her my deepest existential anxieties and dreams, my life cross-roads and tough choices. And, fifteen minutes later we were sharing a table for lunch and sharing a drink. Is it not magical?<br /><br />I came here with lots of questions and I found some few, but enriching answers. First, one should move his steps towards the future not basing his decisions on fear, but on pursuing the things that enlighten you and make you happy. Also, you are never alone if you decide not to be. Loneliness is a personal choice, afterall. Somehow, it is the refusal to open your self to the other. And many people, even if constantly accompanied, are indeed very alone in this world. And the last and most important one, <span style="font-style: italic;">Flor de Caña</span> is still the best rum in the Caribbean. Period. No discussion about that.<br /><br /><br /> - AMOR OMNIA VINCIT -Alex Guerrerohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03565492189724849527noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30746103.post-2814334762513907442009-03-20T10:36:00.007-05:002009-03-20T11:22:29.043-05:00Day on the Field: Four StoriesAt 7am, we drove towards "California", a small community of peasants west of La Ceiba, surrounded by banana fields. A group of fifteen women met us at 9am in the humble house of one of them, in order to proceed to the gathering. The sun was intense outside, and I sat in the hammock, looking at the colorful walls but limited furniture of the place. A hen looked at me from the kitchen.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Fifteen Women -</span> We sang the hymn all together ("Unity, Discipline, Work, Bravery!") and I was introduced to the group. The coordinator engaged us in some relaxing activity to break the seriousness of the morning, and we danced the "hen" song -later, I had to do that myself in front of all the women to get rid of my own shyness-. We all discussed about remedies against dyarrhea in new-borns, in a very socratic way -we engaged them in asking about the pictures we were showing, asking to propose solutions for every symptom. We talked about their personal stories, micro-businesses and doubts. And after a couple of pictures and a lot of laughs, we left. I could see the face of my mother or my grandmother, years ago, in many of those women. I promised them to send back a copy of the pictures I took. I was happy about having spent some time among them... the real reason I came down here. I felt touched, but still an outsider.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_GdkpfCJS4cM/ScO_jqqaXMI/AAAAAAAAAk8/3a6qbDu2Z2M/s1600-h/Central+America+111.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 266px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_GdkpfCJS4cM/ScO_jqqaXMI/AAAAAAAAAk8/3a6qbDu2Z2M/s400/Central+America+111.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5315302604695821506" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">A Kid and a Broken arm -</span> Later on the road, a young teacher stopped us, asking for a ride for her and a kid. When I opened the SUV's door, the kid had a totally broken arm, between the hand and the elbow, in a very ugly way: the arm was still together just by the flesh! He was dying in pain, and we drove fast towards the local "clinic". Apparently, what they call the sobador (lit. "toucher"), a sort of mystical local leader who fix easy lessions in extremities, was out attending someone, and the mother of the child was reliant to let us give them a ride to the closest hospital. The kid was crying: "My mother doesn't have money". I offered to pay the bills, to make it easier. We could not stand the image of the guy in such a deplorable, painful way, and the slowness of the mother to make a decision. She was influenced by a local man, who happened to be the nephew of the sobador, and said that "he always fix everything... even if you go to the hospital, you'ld have to come later to my uncle's clinic for sure". Ignorance, fear, lack of trust to outsiders and peer pressure played here a strong role against the future of the kid's arm. If the kid was not going to the hospital, we offered then to give them a ride to where the sobador was. "He is very close!", say the sobador's nephew. We drove by a dirty road for 20 mins and I couldn't stop seeing the S-shaped arm of the child, who broke into tears. No painkillers around. The road became very complicate for the SUV (no 4-wheels traction) and the mother decided to walk the rest of the trip. They left us, walking, under an intense sun, that morning. I thought in all the unnecessary suffering of the kid, and what was going to wait for him later: the sobador will fix his arm by force, without painkillers, and without deep knowledge of all the deep tissues and nerves that he may break in the process. He would put some wooden tools to keep the bones together, but the kid will play around the next days, after much pain that day, and the bones wouldn't fix perfectly together because of the movement, leaving him a flawed arm for the rest of his life. And we were just 20 mins ride from the closest hospital...<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">We are trapped - </span>In our way back to the main road, driving backwards -no way to u-turn in between the fences and fields- the wheels get trapped in a swamp. No way. We stopped one old man with an older horse, and he helped me pushing the car out of the trap, with no success. In the meantime, I bargained about the horse, with the crazy idea of bringin' it to DC. Later, two younger men appeared on the horizon, and joined us in the impossible mission. We were discussing strategies to escape from that mud trap when another SUV miraculously appeared on the dirty road, and they happened to have something to push us out of the trap. An observation: nobody questioned the need of helping us, or freerided, because all of them assumed our problem was theirs as well: community-based solidarity at work! We gently shaked hands after getting the car back to the road, and we wished God may help us in our future.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_GdkpfCJS4cM/ScPAKEhqMlI/AAAAAAAAAlE/jg0tYSWKdX0/s1600-h/Central+America+126.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 266px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_GdkpfCJS4cM/ScPAKEhqMlI/AAAAAAAAAlE/jg0tYSWKdX0/s400/Central+America+126.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5315303264473461330" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Smuggling and Drug Pirates -</span> During that day, I heard seven different stories of young men shot and killed in the area in the last week. Assuming that the average is half that rate, so like 3.5/week, it gives us an homicide rate of 80, very high <a href="http://myheyday.blogspot.com/2009/03/death-in-san-salvador.html">even for the region</a>, and three times that of Washington South East. Cocaine smuggling is behind 90% of those homicides. One guy was found at midday next to the road by a school bus, with his hands tied with a cell phone charger cord and a shot in the head. They didn't even care to hide the body. Another taxidriver, 22, was found in a condo's door with six head shots at sunset by a girl I met here. Another guy in his 20s was found dead by some coworkers while dropping garbage in a dump. In every story I heard, the person actually found the body, which makes everything really creepy. This is a beautiful, but violent paradise...Alex Guerrerohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03565492189724849527noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30746103.post-23711999700623426422009-03-18T21:22:00.005-05:002009-03-18T21:33:09.211-05:00Life<div style="text-align: justify;">Life should be limited to eating Garifuna's rice dishes, feeling the sunset breeze of the Caribbean under a beach hut, sipping the sweet taste of rum, listening to the stories of new fathers or mothers about their 3 years old children, or the seagulls heading to the port, or the latin music coming from the next beach bar some meters away, or the awesome silent under a sky full, full of stars, or just the waves at night...<br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />No more, no less...<br /><br /></div><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_GdkpfCJS4cM/ScGumvoJ6bI/AAAAAAAAAk0/tlhtxVnJTc4/s1600-h/roatan.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 301px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_GdkpfCJS4cM/ScGumvoJ6bI/AAAAAAAAAk0/tlhtxVnJTc4/s400/roatan.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5314721015917046194" border="0" /></a>Alex Guerrerohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03565492189724849527noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30746103.post-87586619443836231762009-03-18T15:05:00.004-05:002009-03-18T15:16:19.806-05:00The United Fruit Co. <span style="font-size:85%;">The Chilean poet <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pablo_Neruda">Pablo Neruda</a> wrote this poem inspired by the "cute" influence of the big banana-producers in Central America. Honduras, in particular, served to coin the term "<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banana_republic#Background">Banana Republic</a>" in that period, when Chiquita and Dole fighted to control the mainland and provide us with those $0.50/lb bananas you find in the supermarket.
<br /></span>
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<br /><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">The United Fruit Co. </span>
<br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-style: italic;">Pablo Neruda
<br /></span></span><span style="font-size:85%;">(<a href="http://poems.vox.com/library/post/la-united-fruit-co-by-pablo-neruda.html">Original en español</a>)</span>
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mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:Calibri; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi; mso-fareast-language:EN-US;} p {mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-margin-top-alt:auto; margin-right:0cm; mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto; margin-left:0cm; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman";} .MsoChpDefault {mso-style-type:export-only; mso-default-props:yes; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:Calibri; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi; mso-fareast-language:EN-US;} .MsoPapDefault {mso-style-type:export-only; margin-bottom:10.0pt; line-height:115%;} @page Section1 {size:612.0pt 792.0pt; margin:70.85pt 3.0cm 70.85pt 3.0cm; mso-header-margin:36.0pt; mso-footer-margin:36.0pt; mso-paper-source:0;} div.Section1 {page:Section1;} --> </style><!--[if gte mso 10]> <style> /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0cm; mso-para-margin-right:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0cm; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-language:EN-US;} </style> <![endif]--> </div><p style="text-align: center;font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="" lang="EN-US">Then the trumpets bray, and all
<br />of earth braces itself
<br />and Jehovah deals out the land
<br />to Coca Cola Inc., Anaconda,
<br />to Ford Motors and other corporations:
<br />and The Fruit Company, Inc.
<br />takes the ripest for itself,
<br />my land's central coast,
<br />my sweet hips of America.
<br />Then it baptizes it again as
<br />a "Banana Republic" country
<br />and upon our slumbering dead,
<br />upon our straggling martyrs
<br />who have usurped heroism,
<br />liberty and flags,
<br />it colonizes us into a comic opera:
<br />it outlaws free wills,
<br />gives Caesar's crowns as bounty,
<br />unleashes jealousy, plants
<br />the dictatorship of the maggot,
<br />maggot of Trujillo, maggot of Tachos,
<br />maggot of Carias, maggot
<br />of Martinez, maggot of Ubico,
<br />and these maggots are soggy
<br />with humble blood and marmalade,
<br />these drunken maggots crawl
<br />around our common graves,
<br />these circus maggots, these academic
<br />maggots, adept as any tyrant.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><div style="text-align: center; font-family: verdana;"> </div><p style="text-align: center;font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="" lang="EN-US">The Company disembarks
<br />among the blood-thirsty maggots,
<br />our coffee and treasured fruits fill
<br />the brims of their sliding boats
<br />from our submerged fields like tea trays.
<br />
<br />Meanwhile, along the sugared
<br />gulfs of our harbors,
<br />indians fall over, buried
<br />under the morning mists:
<br />a little carrion rolls about, a thing
<br />without a name, a shrunken number,
<br />a clot of dead fruit, spilling
<br />onto the pile of all this rot. </span>
<br /></span></p>Alex Guerrerohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03565492189724849527noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30746103.post-15130036066231088592009-03-15T23:36:00.005-05:002009-03-16T00:40:29.477-05:00OxygenThe left won in El Salvador. It's the first time in their democracy that the ruling party is not going to be re-elected, as it happened the last 22 years. This is a much needed democratic oxygen for the small nation.<br /><br />I don't think that president Funes would be able to transform his society too much in just a mandate. There are many equilibria difficult to break in a heartbeat, which is what a 5-years mandate is. Many things will be reverted though, and women will gain protagonism (FMLN is by far the party with more women in politics, and the one linked to the women rights associations), taxes will become fairer and social policies will be common in depressed areas.<br /><br />Many people will be finally represented. Much can be done to restore the memory of those civilians, innocent peasants, who unfairly fell under the fire of the paras and the army during the Civil war and were forgotten. It's not random that the most educated and the poorest people in El Salvador were behind the FMLN victory, according to every published poll.<br /><br />This country needed him so badly...<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.elpais.com/recorte/20090316elpepuint_2/XLCO/Ies/Celebraciones_calle_seguidores_FMLN.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 620px; height: 200px;" src="http://www.elpais.com/recorte/20090316elpepuint_2/XLCO/Ies/Celebraciones_calle_seguidores_FMLN.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a>Alex Guerrerohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03565492189724849527noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30746103.post-53856589639729267242009-03-15T00:22:00.005-05:002009-03-15T01:00:40.189-05:00On the Road towards a New Country...This morning, I was having an inexpensive but delicious breakfast ($0.50) in a very modest place. The "señora" cooked and prepared the meals for everybody, and when I went to pay, she smiled and asked for feedback. "<span style="font-weight: bold;">It was delicious</span>" I said, and she smiled in satisfaction.<br /><br />Later that day, I was visiting the National Anthropological Museum. <span style="font-style: italic;">Lonely Planet</span> praised the place so much, that I couldn't leave San Salvador without paying a visit to the institution. And the experience was quite rewarding, even if I was the ONLY visitor of the huge museum that day. It was <span style="font-weight: bold;">a bizarre privilege</span>.<br /><br />After that, I sat in a <span style="font-weight: bold;">Taiwanese </span>veggie place for a quick lunch. I noticed that, like in San Francisco, there are huge Chinese communities in several Latin American countries in the Pacific: Peru, Ecuador or some Mexican cities come to my mind. It was also the case in San Salvador. Here, like in Madrid, the owner, who was having dinner with his family in one of the tables and didn't speak Spanish at all, said "Hola" with difficulties and he called the Salvadoran girl to take my order. Later, after a banana milkshake and some curry rice, I was ready to leave the country.<br /><br />Once I was at bus station, the only available ticket to Tegucigalpa was <span style="font-weight: bold;">first class</span>. I bought it. The bus was just impressive. We had a huge sofa -not seat, a sofa- for us, a complimentary champagne glass and newspaper before the departure, and several ammenities in between. It was like the first class in a transatlantic flight. The waitress offered another lunch right after the departure. This was happening while we were driving by San Salvador outskirts, with all the slums, brick and concrete "houses", watermelon and coconut stands and children playing soccer in the streets. And dogs. Here, the left party electoral signs, even if more rudimentary (just paintings in walls), were more common than the conservative party's propaganda. Just the opposite to what happened in the affluent area were this upscale bus line departs from. It was a huge contrast, again <span style="font-weight: bold;">the phantom of inequality</span>, to see the things we, white skinned people, could enjoy inside that mobile bubble of luxury, crossing through a world of scarcity and needs. Again, that phantom everywhere.<br /><br />Soon enough, we left behind San Salvador, and the green hills and coffee fields and volcanoes filled the scene. After two hours, El Salvador, its people and the future to be written tomorrow in the election day, were already behind. <span>Thanks for everything</span>, El Salvador. I am leaving richer than I came.<br /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">PS.</span> After two flat wheels and more than 8 hours to cover 133 miles between both cities, I arrived to Tegucigalpa at 10pm. The hotel looks like an awesome colonial palace (6 rooms) overlooking the river, and the hills of Tegus, packed with lights and little houses, look like a Van Gogh starred night. Just impressive...Alex Guerrerohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03565492189724849527noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30746103.post-38493879953719267122009-03-12T22:57:00.007-05:002009-03-13T00:54:38.735-05:00El Cambio es la Unica ConstanteEl domingo llegarán por fin las <span style="font-weight: bold;">decisivas elecciones</span>. Y la sociedad está muy muy polarizada. Como medida de "seguridad" (es decir, más burocracia fronteriza y calles cortadas) me han recomendado dejar el país el día antes, cosa que haré camino de la tranquila Tegucigalpa. Me perderé la fiesta. Será un día histórico para la democracia salvadoreña si hay cambio en el poder, y <a href="http://www.systemicpeace.org/polity/sal2.htm">alcanzarán un valor de 10</a> en la escala de consolidación democrática. Y si no, seguirá todo como hasta ahora, sin ningún cambio en las fracasadas políticas para mantener la cohesión social y reducir el crimen creciente, y no menos importante, sin verdaderos controles a la corrupción galopante. Y sería indignante...<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_GdkpfCJS4cM/SbniBhRXAtI/AAAAAAAAAkk/R0ozm2mrjPw/s1600-h/1109AM9.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 309px; height: 255px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_GdkpfCJS4cM/SbniBhRXAtI/AAAAAAAAAkk/R0ozm2mrjPw/s400/1109AM9.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5312525751199138514" border="0" /></a><span style="font-weight: bold;">Porque hay cosas indignantes:</span><br /><ul><li>Un país con casi <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_Salvador">$6.000 per cápita</a> no debería tener provincias con <a href="http://www.povertymap.net/publications/inventory/graphics/elsalvador.jpg">más del 15% de niños malnutridos</a>. Una política social eficaz (como <span style="font-style: italic;">Bolsa Familia</span> en Brasil) podría resolver el <span style="font-weight: bold;">hambre</span> con muy poco dinero. Y en muy poco tiempo.<br /></li><br /><li>Un país con casi $6.000 per cápita <span style="font-weight: bold;">debería ser capaz de recaudar más</span> que <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_El_Salvador">el 11% del PIB</a>. Sin dinero no hay espacio para políticas públicas razonables, y sólo queda un <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Police_state">Estado Guardián</a> sólo capaz de mantener el status quo. Gobierne la derecha o la izquierda.</li><br /><li>Porque la clave es siempre la misma: Un país con $6.000 per capita y una desigualdad alta (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gini_coefficient">Gini</a> 0,52), el 20% más rico tiene muchísima riqueza acumulada, y <span style="font-weight: bold;">el sistema fiscal debería ser más progresivo para ser sostenible</span>. En El Salvador, el marginal máximo del impuesto sobre la renta y sobre las empresas (es decir, aquellos que ganan cientos de miles, sino millones de dólares al año) es un ridículo 25%: en cualquier país <s>desarrollado</s> civilizado oscila entre el 38% y el 50%. En su lugar, son los impuestos al consumo la base del sistema tributario salvadoreño (casi el 60% de los ingresos). Y éstos los pagan mayoritariamente aquellos que dedican todo su presupuesto a <s>consumir</s> sobrevivir, es decir, los más pobres...<br /></li></ul><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Ya sólo me quedan un par de días en El Salvador.</span> Y haciendo memoria, han sido días de sonrisas. El Salvador es sobre todo, para mi, la sonrisa de sus mujeres. Esa sonrisa cálida y hospitalaria con que me acogieron desde buen principio, el abrazo amistoso, y el trabajo duro con que enfrentan el día a día. En muchas ocasiones, ellas son el único sostén familiar, huido el padre y abandonados los hijos. Y sometidas a múltiples discriminaciones, analfabetismo, los peores trabajos, la falta de respeto y el paternalismo católico, ellas sorprendentemente salen adelante. Pese a que la injusticia se replica con cada generación nueva. El "sexo débil" es, aquí más que en ninguna parte, el más fuerte.<br /><br />Me recuerdan mucho, en muy diversas formas, a mi madre. Admiro su coraje...Alex Guerrerohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03565492189724849527noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30746103.post-19214544463610186852009-03-10T23:15:00.010-05:002009-03-11T03:00:50.401-05:00Death in San SalvadorI have been quite naïve so far. Nice streets, warm people and this apparent medium-high level of development were hiding the truth. But the reality is <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_homicide_rate">crystal clear</a>: <span style="font-weight: bold;">El Salvador is, after Irak, the most dangerous place on Earth</span> (Honduras ranks fourth). As it is the case of DC, in El Salvador weapons are widespread: almost 10% of the population -basically men- carry guns in the streets. No wonder why many restaurants and shops display a door sticker of "Guns forbidden here" next to the one about dogs.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_GdkpfCJS4cM/SbdFO4vR_7I/AAAAAAAAAkc/nuz4GZKbN5w/s1600-h/homicidesworld.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 260px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_GdkpfCJS4cM/SbdFO4vR_7I/AAAAAAAAAkc/nuz4GZKbN5w/s400/homicidesworld.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5311790407557971890" border="0" /></a><br /><br />Latino gangs come to the mind of many people when imagining Central American crime. The "mara Salvatrucha" or the 18th street one are internationally famous. I was watching yesterday a documentary on Salvadorian <span style="font-style: italic;">maras </span>(gangs), which apparently became more invisible after the surge in governmental repression since 2003. But also because of that, now they are stronger and the way they operate is pretty similar to the Sicilian mafias: they impose a code of fear and trust in the neighborhoods, a parallel tax system, and a code of honor and retaliation in the areas they control. Gambetta was very good explaining <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Sicilian-Mafia-Business-Private-Protection/dp/0674807421">the mindset behind the <span style="font-style: italic;">omertà</span></a>. But the maras can't be behind the astronomical crime rates and assassinations: <a href="http://www.perfil.com/contenidos/2007/06/18/noticia_0008.html">their business is </a><a href="http://www.perfil.com/contenidos/2007/06/18/noticia_0008.html">to protect</a>, not to assassinate.<br /><br />"But it's the structural violence in the Salvadorian society the main reason for such a rampant crime", África said to me today. She is responsible for governance and gender at the Spanish Embassy and I just had a meeting with her about our development project. After arguing that usually she is anything but paranoid about crime, she begged me to double my caution, and shared her personal number just in case anything would happen. She also suggested that it would be a good idea to leave the country <span style="font-weight: bold;">before </span>election day. "Do you guys expect trouble?", and the answer was more than positive, due to the political tensions going on and how close is the race. Claims of fraud are expected for sure, and political violence can happen during or before election day. In the way back to my guesthouse, I asked my cabdriver if he had experience crime recently. "Look at these red signs in my hands: they tied me hard two months ago". Apparently, he picked up some guys in the bus station, just arriving from Guatemala, and they pointed to his head with a gun and stole his car. He was just lucky to survive, because many others don't.<br /><br />In a <a href="http://scholar.google.com.sv/scholar?q=Inequality+And+Crime&hl=es&lr=&btnG=Buscar&lr=">highly cited paper</a>, Morgan Kelly found that violent crime is strongly correlated to inequality, adding more empirical evidence to the social disorganization theories: crime is going to rise in parallel to inequality. And here I am, in one of the most unequal countries in the world, after 22 years rule of the conservative ARENA party (and a previous dictatorship) and two decades of <a href="http://myheyday.blogspot.com/2009/03/bananas-maquilas-and-volunteers.html">Maquila economy</a>. Data like the one I show below should help us to understand why Salvadorans are living in such a violent world:<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_GdkpfCJS4cM/SbdE9p5tRoI/AAAAAAAAAkU/MmnyL4HTMto/s1600-h/maquilas_wage.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 289px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_GdkpfCJS4cM/SbdE9p5tRoI/AAAAAAAAAkU/MmnyL4HTMto/s400/maquilas_wage.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5311790111517394562" border="0" /></a><br />Today I also started reading "<span style="font-style: italic;">Guazapa: Testimonio de un médico norteamericano</span>" by Charles Clements. It's the account of a young Californian M.D. in 1980, who after having exposure in San Jose to victims of tortures in El Salvador, decides to get involved and find his way to help civilians suffering the violence of the civil war... in the guerrilla side. After two chapters, I was totally moved by the descriptions of the suffering, surgery with swiss knifes and dental floss, violence and human misery. <span class="body">And this kind of experiences, like that of Dr. Clements, engender a strong, [com]passionate character.<br /><br />Character, like a photograph, develops better in darkness.</span>Alex Guerrerohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03565492189724849527noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30746103.post-56365236116655224742009-03-03T20:35:00.004-06:002009-03-04T00:42:47.767-06:00Bananas, Maquilas and Volunteers<span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">El Salvador Fact of the Day: </span>"Una cora" is "one quarter", and it's pronounced exactly this way in Spanish. The Salvadoran economy is dollarized, by the way.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Taste of the Day: </span><a style="font-style: italic;" href="http://www.elsalvador.com.ec/pupusas.htm">Pupusas rellenas de Chicharrones y Queso</a></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-weight: bold;"><br />Drink of the Day: </span><span style="font-style: italic;">Licuado de Guineo</span> (Banana-like milkshake)</span><br /><br />-----------------------------------------------------------------------------<br /><br />Compared to their other Latin American peers, which in the last years have heavily relied on commodity-driven growth, Central American countries and Mexico are quite industrialized. Much of their industrial network is channeled through the <span style="font-style: italic;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maquiladora">Maquila</a> </span>system.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_GdkpfCJS4cM/Sa4g5T2G0CI/AAAAAAAAAkM/ZwXOHxsG8p8/s1600-h/3223297327_6aa1ec2cf2.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 266px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_GdkpfCJS4cM/Sa4g5T2G0CI/AAAAAAAAAkM/ZwXOHxsG8p8/s400/3223297327_6aa1ec2cf2.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5309217179668238370" border="0" /></a>The <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maquiladora">maquila </a>economic system surged in small economies which are open to "free" trade, being very succesful attracting foreign direct investment to those zones free of taxes and with meagre labor regulations. The resulting economic equilibrium is one where the citizenry can't benefit from the economic activity -no taxes to finance public services- and the economic impact of those investments is limited. The later is especially true because of the limited multiplier effect in the economy derived from low wages paid in the maquila and the worse job conditions compared to the rest of the economy. In addition, other domestic businesses are harm by the maquilas (factories, call centers, service providers) because they can't compete in the same conditions, and they end entering in a race-to-the-bottom in salaries and labor conditions.<br /><br />It is true that, because of the maquila system, El Salvador is quite industrial -in textiles, for example-, as it is also the case of Mexico or Central America. And if your goal is to transform your society in the gray outskirts of Shanghai, keep trying. But if you aspire to a different society, much more European, Chilean or Canadian, then this equilibrium is really toxic.<br /><br />The most frustrating issue is that, even if the left party wins the next elections, there is little to do in the short run. Without regional coordination, any movement to increase the tax pressure or to improve labor conditions in the maquilas, will produce a stampide to the closest country. This is why they are also known as "golondrinas" (swallows).<br /><br />Someone told me about a Canadian non-profit, named <a href="http://www.cis-elsalvador.org/">Center for Exchange and Solidarity</a>, whose mission is to be an international electoral observer during the upcoming Salvadoran presidential elections (03/15). As soon as I heard about them, I got excited and immediately contacted them to join their crew in the Election Day. Unfortunately, it seems not to be cheap to <span style="font-style: italic;">volunteer </span>for a good cause, and I'm still figuring out where to get from the almost $300 necessary to join them.Alex Guerrerohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03565492189724849527noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30746103.post-38157060768031133422009-03-01T21:43:00.007-06:002009-03-01T22:40:14.017-06:00Five quick facts about El Salvador and some random thoughts...1. It's good to be again at 90ºF / 32ºC. This has been my last winter.<br /><br />2. Either you are a Real Madrid supporter or a Barça supporter, as I am. And there is no reconciliation between both worlds. The cab driver stopped talking to me, for 40 minutes, after noticing I was from Barça (he was <span style="font-style: italic;">madridista</span>). On the other side, the border guy became a best friend forever of mine because of that, and I skipped paying the 10$ tourist fee.<br /><br />3. As I noticed several times before in Washington, my Spanish is hard to understand for Salvadorans. The other way around also applies.<br /><br />4. Classism is quite less obvious in El Salvador than in other Latin American countries, due in part to a national sense of equality, due in part to the racial blend of Europeans, Amerindians and Asians that Salvadorans usually are, regarding of the social class.<br /><br />5. The national cuisine includes too much fried stuff to keep people reasonably fit. Pupusas are tasty and good, yeah, but for breakfast everyday, really? :)<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_GdkpfCJS4cM/SatfbZVVXoI/AAAAAAAAAkE/u5RWA0Qrtzk/s1600-h/fmln.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 339px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_GdkpfCJS4cM/SatfbZVVXoI/AAAAAAAAAkE/u5RWA0Qrtzk/s400/fmln.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5308441510047735426" border="0" /></a>I was talking to a recently graduated Salvadoran lawyer about the political situation: "If the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farabundo_Mart%C3%AD_National_Liberation_Front">F</a><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farabundo_Mart%C3%AD_National_Liberation_Front">MLN</a> (the exguerrilla leftist party) wins next week elections, it'll be fine. And I plan to go for grad school to Chicago, with a scholarship. But if they don't, or if the elections are so close that the ruling party (<a href="http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alianza_Republicana_Nacionalista">ARENA</a>) uses fraud to remain in power, I'll stay to protect my family here and fight against the fraud". The right-wing ARENA party has been in power the last 22 years, since the end of the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salvadoran_Civil_War">Salvadoran Civil War</a>. Much of the country's current problems, corruption, nepotism and unhealthy policies are a direct responsibility of ARENA's management of the country. Using the phantom of communism, associated to the exguerrilla, they managed to stay in power for two decades, even if it is also true that their power has been fading especially since 2003. Now many Salvadorans look with envy to the integration process going on in Latin America under different umbrellas, either the <a href="http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alternativa_Bolivariana_para_las_Am%C3%A9ricas">ALBA</a> alternative or the Southern Cone old experiment, and the prosperity they don't enjoy. <span style="font-style: italic;">Maquilas</span>, either in the sweat-shop version or the higher standard glass-and-iron office for the middle class who is bilingual, are the skeleton of the Salvadoran economy, preventing workers from properly unionizing and keeping reasonable wages. And all this pressure cooker, just moderated by the constant emigration to the US, is fuelling the vote for the opposition party.<br /><br />Many civic organizations, including the non-profit I am collaborating with, are really mobilized to get out the vote and ensure that there is a healthy transition in power, but the ruling party has been too long in power to leave it easily. Anyhow, I plan to attend a free concert of top Salvadoran pop bands, organized by <span style="font-style: italic;">Democracia y Desarrollo</span> next weekend. The idea is to promote a conscious and meditated vote of the youngest, but obviously the indirect effect is to increase the vote for the change.<br /><br />Good luck, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farabundo_Mart%C3%AD_National_Liberation_Front">FMLN</a>!Alex Guerrerohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03565492189724849527noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30746103.post-80321960508535711502009-02-26T16:26:00.005-06:002009-02-26T17:07:03.030-06:00Prologue to a TripI see my path, but I don't know where it leads. Not knowing where I'm going is what inspires me to travel it, because a man cannot discover new oceans unless he has the courage to lose sight of the shore. As André Gidé said, it is only in adventure that some people succeed in knowing themselves - in finding themselves. And the personal life deeply lived always expands into truths beyond itself. The biggest of those truths lie deep inside ourselves, waiting to be revealed. Our own conscience, naked of prejudices and learned cliches...<br /><br />We should come home from adventures, and perils, and discoveries every day with new experience and character. Because Life is either a great adventure or nothing...<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;">. . .<br /><br /></div>We have grown up in a world which was given to us as it is, and it's self-justifying, and it tries to force us to follow some rules and patterns, ensuring its own survival. But we know, very well, that are certain features, certain aspects, which go against our human nature, reducing our ability to bright, to be upright. And we may acknowledge as well that those things must be corrected through the slow but unstoppable transformation of this system, in order to make it more just and human-like.<br /><p>Sometimes the contradictions of the system, as it happens in our present time, become very apparent. And these are those opportunity windows when the transformation is more possible than ever, because more people will be aware of the unfairness of the rules that domain us... but it is still our duty to help them to see what they always knew deep inside themselves: to see their own inner light.<br /></p>Alex Guerrerohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03565492189724849527noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30746103.post-64247984930194266802009-02-22T23:55:00.005-06:002009-02-23T00:33:06.586-06:00Five Days to Go...Despite the fact that I live at the gates of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Pleasant,_Washington,_D.C.">the most Salvadoran neighborhood in DC</a>, and I'm supposed to be familiar with Latin American politics, the last name I could ever know would be the El Salvador president, <a href="http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/El%C3%ADas_Antonio_Saca_Gonz%C3%A1lez">Elías Antonio Saca González</a>. As the country's resemblances with the 2001 Argentinean meltdown were becoming obvious, the guy recently tried to enact a tax reform that would increase tax pressure over corporations and the private sector, to end the traditional fiscal deficit of the Salvadoran state. As usual, the big corporations lobbied against the reform and forced the removal of the finance minister, thus blocking the tax reform.<br /><br />Some day, my dissertation (supposedly) will explain why this sort of things happen all the time in Latin America, and why many countries, like El Salvador, end with a tax system based mainly in regressive sales taxes (60% of total taxation). This sort of policy equilibrium forces the working class and low-middle class to bear the lion's share of the tax burden, also neutralizing any real attempt of establishing real redistributive policies. And in the long run, the level of inequality gets crazy: <span style="font-weight: bold;">0.52</span> in the last <a href="http://www.pnud.org.sv/2007/content/view/68/">UNDP report</a>, one of the highest in the world. And there is a well established DUH!-like bulk of knowledge on why inequality is not just <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Theory_of_Justice">ethically wrong</a>, but also <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2005/jul/30/highereducation.news1">happens to kill</a> and to hinder human development. And if democracies don't correct those imbalances at some point, you don't have to wait too long to see bands of people with torches messing around. Or, as it is the case of El Salvador, joining the maras (gangs). The US <s>deported</s> exported more than 20.000 gang members from south Cali back to El Salvador, exacerbating the problems of a country already over-populated.<br /><br />Anyway, I already plotted the route on the map (the good thing about planning trips is that you are never able to follow your own plans):<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_GdkpfCJS4cM/SaJAtB029LI/AAAAAAAAAj0/6dYT-zrKuxg/s1600-h/ruta.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 303px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_GdkpfCJS4cM/SaJAtB029LI/AAAAAAAAAj0/6dYT-zrKuxg/s400/ruta.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5305874453324297394" border="0" /></a><span>I officially love Google Earth</span><span style="font-weight: bold;"><br />5 days to go...</span><br /></div>Alex Guerrerohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03565492189724849527noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30746103.post-82544555161270635142009-02-19T09:57:00.007-06:002009-02-19T11:54:11.672-06:00Alex goes to the Tropics (again)...In a week, I'll be landing in San Salvador for a month adventure. I am supposed to work in two projects for a small non-profit in <a href="http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=san+salvador,+el+salvador&sll=15.30538,-86.85791&sspn=4.269437,7.207031&g=la+ceiba,+honduras&ie=UTF8&ll=14.732386,-88.80249&spn=4.535723,7.207031&z=7" target="_blank"><span style="font-weight: bold;">San Salvador</span></a> (El Salvador) and <a href="http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=la+ceiba+honduras&sll=14.732386,-88.80249&sspn=4.535723,7.207031&ie=UTF8&ll=15.135764,-86.923828&spn=4.272875,7.207031&z=7" target="_blank"><span style="font-weight: bold;">La Ceiba</span></a> (Honduras). In between, I'll have to travel through both countries, stop in Tegucigalpa, meet the people from the Spanish official cooperation, flight to La Ceiba, work on the project, and visit the Islands of the Bay (aka Roatán) in the weekends. During my time in El Salvador, we'll design a project to build a school to train unemployed low-income women expelled from the <span style="font-style: italic;">Maquilas </span>(sweat-shops), and in Honduras we'll write a proposal to gain funds for micro-lending to poor women who want to run their own business in order to sustain their families. It's amazing how women and their perseverance have been, so frequently, the mortar of survival in our societies.<br /><br />As the departure day gets closer, this adventure it's increasingly enticing me for many reasons -a real opportunity to help and travel- but particularly cuz I'll be able to escape from DC, its dramas and people. I need to detox from this local culture of blind career-building, super-egos and unleashed ambitions, and reconnect with the simple things in life that should guide human dreams and humble ambitions. The proximity of others, the sense of doing the right thing, the relaxation of the Latin American soul, manifested everywhere in smiles, songs, hugs, tastes and their friendliness, and yes, the warm, warm <a href="http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla%3Aen-US%3Aofficial&hs=gZW&q=weather+san+salvador&btnG=Search" target="_blank">sun</a>.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">So yes, I'm almost ready to go.</span><br /></div><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos-h.ak.fbcdn.net/photos-ak-snc1/v2216/107/68/316540/n316540_33582015_9947.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 335px; height: 371px;" src="http://photos-h.ak.fbcdn.net/photos-ak-snc1/v2216/107/68/316540/n316540_33582015_9947.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a>Alex Guerrerohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03565492189724849527noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30746103.post-66331477526981203912009-01-13T14:31:00.001-06:002009-01-13T14:32:47.742-06:00Si hoy fuera tu último día con vida, ¿seguirías haciendo lo que estás haciendo?"Recordar que vas a morir, es la mejor forma que conozco de evitar la trampa de que tienes algo que perder; ya estás desnudo; no hay razón para no seguir a tu corazón"<br /><br /><div align="right">Steve Jobs</div>Alex Guerrerohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03565492189724849527noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30746103.post-69880395205256441792008-10-31T13:51:00.002-05:002008-10-31T13:52:13.981-05:00Buscandome a mi mismoSi tuviera que medir mi grado de ansiedad en base a cuánta información busco en google, diría que va en aumento...<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_GdkpfCJS4cM/SQtTzljzesI/AAAAAAAAAaQ/mymlMlOF1oE/s1600-h/google.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 230px; height: 295px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_GdkpfCJS4cM/SQtTzljzesI/AAAAAAAAAaQ/mymlMlOF1oE/s400/google.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5263392735233276610" border="0" /></a>Alex Guerrerohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03565492189724849527noreply@blogger.com3