Andres Velasco: Where do we go from here?

Chazz Michael Michaels

For those of you that don't know, Andrés Velasco is the former finance minister of Chile who was perhaps the only man in his position (in the West, at least) during the global boom to adopt a counter-cyclical policy, i.e. he saved for the rainy day to come. From Wikipedia:

When the price of copper reached all-time highs in 2006, boosting government revenues, Velasco resisted intense political pressure from government workers and students to spend the windfall. Instead he opted to hold it in reserves equivalent to 30% of the country's GDP. After the copper price plummeted following the 2007-2010 global financial crisis, threatening the Chilean economy, Velasco then used these reserves on stimulus spending for subsidies and tax cuts policies now being praised for their positive social impact His popularity reversed from one of the most reviled politicians to one of the most admired.

He shares his criticisms on the Euro, and the effect of cuts, in the video above. Mainly asking, if some asked a Latin American before the Euro was brought in, what would they have said? It is a very interesting talk, and lasts less than 20 mins.

I recommend watching it.

southsiderosie

MOD NOTE:

OP, please don't start a thread with a video without giving us a detailed explanation of what is in it, plus your opinion. What is Velasco's main argument, and why?

This could make for an interesting discussion, but you need to assume that people may not be able to watch the video from where they are reading the thread at. Given the charter rules on this, I'm going to temporarily close the thread - PM me if you want to update the OP to be more discussion-friendly, and I will re-open it.