Japan announces a stimulus as the Right take over Bolivia

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1. Great job in Japan, Bill.

2. Yes, well done Bill, that’s very good news for the people of Japan.

3. The (Just Transition) Framework is motivated by the awareness that without consent from the people, particularly those who will be negatively impacted by these transformations in terms of their jobs and local opportunities, there is little chance of an effective policy response to the climate emergency.” Truer words were never spoken, and the environmental movement had better heed them. Closing down coal mines, for example, without alternative (preferably better and healthier) jobs being offered to the miners, may work here and there, but on a society-wide basis, it’s the recipe for disaster. As Bill constantly reminds us, people, including working people with families to support, are also part of creation, which we must work to restore and protect in its entirety by “massive socio-economic transformations.” And when there are no lesser options left, we must think big and bold, there being “no Just Transition without MMT.”

4. I’m afraid John McDonnell is playing it the only way he can in the present climate. We have a media that is 100% hostile to Labour. The BBC appear to prefer Johnson and Farage and MMT means the Magic Money Tree. Governments run just like households and IFS and the Resolution Foundation are grounded in neoliberalism. The only reason the McDonnell survives is because the Tories are also promising increased government spending. McDonnell is aiming to make the manifesto fully costed as in 2017. I would love a grown up debate about MMT but the country is not ready for it. Chris Williamson has been deselected and half the Labour Party wants Tony Blair to ride up on a white charger. Yes, it’s truly desperate but at least Corbyn and McDonnell have moved the Overton Window so that serious things are being debated. I don’t see an awful lot of talent in our parliament but I do some some honest caring people. If most people had been subjected to the ad hominem attacks directed at Jeremy they would have just walked away. I’m sorry but this country is a joke that isn’t funny and it’s going to get a lot worse.

5. Resources and markets are catnip for capital and finance, they stimulate and focus like nothing else. If you look at the various coups/wars we have seen over the entire history of exploitative behavior by big business, they are usually motivated by desires to access more of each, if not merely to punish or decimate the working classes, whenever they try to promote any motion toward greater equality. Bolivia today is no exception.

   The just transition would be ideal, but it’s difficult to see how it will happen in a world were we still have unfolding coups like Bolivia, and Venezuela, well supported by faux corporatist s posing as Liberal progressives, with only weak if any opposition from Green or Social Democratic directions throughout so much of the developed world.

   Most folks don’t seem to get that the right ideologues who preach that all kinds of doom and gloom will ensue should anything happen to displace private capital as the pilot in economies are only speaking from their own perspective and not the greater community.

   It’s been great to hear that the MMT perspectives are gaining the attention of power in at least one region. Let’s hope the result is something positive and a movement grows from there.

6. Bill Mitchell visits Japan, and talks to some key people there. Then a stimulus package is announced.

   “No causality claimed”. 🙂

   You either played a blinder, or perhaps were pushing at an already open door. Either way, it seems good for Japan, as others have said.

   ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

   As for McDonnell and Labour, well, as I feared, they have been caught off-guard by Johnson spending money like a member of the Bullingdon Club on a good night out, and are running to catch up, having preached fiscal responsibility for the last few years, instead of trying to educate the public with the knowledge of MMT principles. They should have learned from Chris Williamson instead of kicking him out for spurious reasons.
   Now they have this ridiculous policy of taxing the super-rich to pay for their additional spending. People will soon work out that this does not add up, and interpret it probably as meaning increased taxes for everyone before long. This policy may well play well in Corbynista circles, but it won’t in the wider country, especially when it has been reinterpreted by the right-wing press.

7. Coincidence??? Who can say?

8. Bad times now await the Bolivian people now that such a repellent group of thieves, con men, human rights abusers and religious extremists have siezed power. It looks like Morales has received payback for his honest UN speech in the presence of Pompeo and Trump and for daring to spend money on the welfare of the Bolivian people. At least the people will now see who delivers better for them.

   It looks like the only hope for Latin America is if their perpetual tormentor reforms under a Bernie Sanders presidency.

   Well done Bill for increasing the chance for a stimulus in Japan. This will improve the lives of millions of Japanese citizens and maybe good fiscal and employment policy will become the norm?

9. @ Andreas Bimba:-
   “…a repellent group of thieves, con men, human rights abusers and religious extremists have siezed power”.

   Your comprehensively-damning assessment has (as I feared would happen) demolished the hope I have been feebly clinging-to – ie that the opposition to Morales *might possibly* have some (however few) redeeming features.

   Accepting fairly uncritically all the claims made for his period in office because the evidence appears to support all or most of them – making due allowance for political rhetoric – was he *really* justified in seeking a fourth term in defiance of the constitution? I can’t help but doubt that.

   I appreciate of course that that’s applying the norms (or what pass for norms) in what we like to think of as “western democracy” and that applying those to the situation in Bolivia might be a bit crass – given the totally-nefarious activities of the USA throughout the region (Chile, Argentina, Venezuela, San Salvador, Panama, ,…).

   But it would be interesting to have your – much better-informed than my own – opinion as to whether the issues in regard to Bolivia are quite as “black-and-white” and simplistic as they’re being represented-as by the European Left. (IMHO they haven’t been in relation to Venezuela for example – though you may think otherwise).

10. @robertH

    A good start is this short but insightful piece on Jacobin by historian Grandin with the title “A Few Tips on How to Understand Latin American Coups”:

    (Link to be displayed at Bills discretion:)
    https://jacobinmag.com/2019/11/greg-grandin-bolivia-evo-morales-coup-latin-america

    These 2 of the 6 bullet points might be the best suited to provide guidance in this messy situation:

    Point 1 of 6:
    “1. There has never been a coup in Latin America where the president being overthrown wasn’t considered “problematic.” (Yes, not even Allende.)”

    And Point 6 of 6:
    “6. When assessing comparable negatives of the contending sides vying for power – always a good exercise when you want virtue signal your “nuanced” position distinct from evil rightists and ideological leftists – don’t forget to weigh the future in your deliberations. For instance, a few years ago in Brazil, a number of leftists pointed out that the Workers Party (PT) was indeed corrupt and cut off from its base. Now, as we hurtle toward the climate apocalypse and see the nature of Bolosonaro, perhaps we’d assign a few more points to the PT side of that conflict.”

    In regards to the identities and track records of those involved in the coup, I find this piece by investigative journalists (the old scholl kind) Max Blumenthal and Ben Norton on “TheGreyZone.com” to be the most detailed one.

    (Link to be displayed at Bill’s discretion:)
    https://thegrayzone.com/2019/11/11/bolivia-coup-fascist-foreign-support-fernando-camacho/

    It appears to be an amalgam of reactionary military, moderate conservatives and outright christo-facists, international capital (particularily the mining sector) and support out of Washington by both the OAS (remember Haiti in 2000?) and the CIA. The latter’s support might be only indirect, since a handful of the coup front figures are graduates of the “Western Hemisphere Institute for Cooperation (WHINSEC)” formerly known as “The school of the Americas”, where Latin American Elites and Military have been trained in “counter insurgency” and “low intensity warfare” for decades. Others have served as so called “military attachés” in DC, one of them being the coup’s top honcho Gen. Kaliman (back in 2013). Pompeo was pretty fast in recognizing the “interim president” so it was at least a welcome sight to Washington.

    Noam Chomsky once refered to foreign policy of the US as being straight out of “the godfather’s playbook”. Insurrection and insubordinance have to be punished before “the contagion” might spread. Simply claiming Morales is an ineffective leader won’t fly because his record would make “serious” leader blush: GDP has risen to approx. 300% the value it had when he came into office while poverty and extreme poverty were reduced quite effectively (42% and 60% according to “The Nation”). Hence the “electoral fraud” shtick.

    The reclamations of fraud by the OAS are taken under scrutiny by journalist Mark Weisbrod in “The Nation” and found to be lacking in substance. The claim is that the fast count system was briefly interrupted and that when it resumed Morales had regained a suspicious amount of traction. This accusation falls rather flat since:

    1. The system itself is not official and was only introduced at the behest of the OAS themselves. While the system did experience an interruption, the official count did not and was available during the downtime of the “fast count”. Every change in the count is therefore accounted for.

    2. The claim of suspicion of the fast rise in Morales favour towards the latter stages of the count is facetious at best, since the results in the rural areas that heavily favor Morales where some of the last to be accounted for. Hence, a sharp correction was expected.

    3. The final results fell well within the margin of error predicted before the election and (if I remember correctly) even ended up costing MAS (Evo’s party) some seats in parliament. If this was a rig, it was one of the most ineffective in recent memory.

    (Again, the link to Weisbrod’s article to b displayed at Bill’s discretion:)
    https://www.thenation.com/article/bolivia-election-oas/

    Finally, an maybe most importantly, given the recent turn towards electrification in the car industry, the demand for lithium is expected to rise (even more) sharply and Bolivia happens to be sitting on some of the greatest, some even say the greatest, reserves of the metal on earth in the “Salar de Uyuni” region. Morales has repeatedly proclaimed that any deal for exploitation would have to be conducted in cooperation with the state company “Yacimientos de Litio Bolivianos” (YLB). A joint venture with a German enterprise, ACI Systems, started last year but was cancelled recently by Morales (though I don’t know if this took place before or after the recent election) with a Chinese company, Xinjiang TBEA Group, set to take over (remember that mafia/godfather bit –> old school turf war!). This piece of information I got from Yahoo News, so it should be readily available online.

    I don’t know if this was the main reason or merely the drop that spilled the glass, but an at least important motive behind the coup is to enforce a private-exploitation-friendly government akin to Macri’s in Argentina. Over there, lithium production increased by around 60% between 2015 and 2016 when the neoliberal Macri removed currency and capital controls as well as taxes introduced by his predecessors, which led a lot of foreign companies to consider opportunities in Argentina’s lithium mining industry. This went so well, that the IMF moved in to make a killing. Yet again.

    I lack the time, knowledge and patience to go over the hundreds of years of colonialism/imperialism that yielded the current makeup of Bolivian society and how these ethnic and socioeconomic tensions fuel the conflict, but suffice it to say the european vs. indigenous divide correlates pretty well with the rich vs. poor angle and that it is kinda important.

    Well, that’s the shortest version of this mess I can provide 🙂

11. In my rage about yet another regime change in Latin America, I forgot to extend my congratulations to Bill for his part in increasing the chances of stimulus in Japan.

    Now do Germany/EU, please! 🙂

12. Thank you for the links, Hermann.

13. A really good summary of the Bolivian coup Hermann. Much more informative than my limited knowledge would have allowed.

    Maybe a view to the future of politics in the liberal ‘democracies’ where the US acts as the enforcer for the global hard right fundamentalist Christian wealthy oligarchy and democracy becomes just a charade.

    The insurrection to oust Maduro in Venezuela looks very similar. Under Maduro the Venezuelan economy is not performing well due to hyperinflation, poor self sufficiency, crippling sanctions and corruption but elections are the preferred method to select governments.