This is fascinating, at least to me. Were I younger, and more daring, I might be moving to Uruguay.
Based on this piece at Truthout, Uruguay Takes on London Bankers, Marlboro Mad Men and the TPP, Uruguay seems to be doing a whole lot more things right than the good ole U S of A. And, so far, its leaders are heroic in resisting pressure from the global corporatocracy. The author, Michael Meurer, explains:
Uruguay has spent the last decade quietly defying the new transnational order of global banks, multinational corporations and supranational trade tribunals and is now in a fight for its survival as an independent nation. It is a rich and important story that needs to be told.
What Uruguay is doing seems to be working. It’s annual average growth rate over the past decades is 5.6%. That’s huge. What’s the formula for Uruguay’s success? In two words: Progressive policies:
In November 2014, Uruguayan voters voiced approval for their government’s policies of social tolerance and public spending on early childhood education, affordable universal health care and social safety net programs by re-electing former president Tabaré Vasquez from the ruling Broad Front party. With support from allied green and radical left parties, Vasquez won a landslide victory against a neoliberal opponent who ran on a platform of slashing public sector spending and opening the nation’s economy to foreign investors. Instead, Vasquez’s return to the presidency in 2015 will extend the Uruguayan social democratic experiment another five years to 2020. London’s neoliberal, supply-side bankers are not amused.
But the global powers that be are not amused.
