Joel Bowman with today’s Note From the End of the World: Asunción, Paraguay…
By the time Alfredo Stroessner gave up the ghost in 1989, his compatriots must have been ready for something new…
Paraguay had wallowed under one form of dictatorship or another for most of the 20th Century, including a third of it under Stroessner’s iron fist. For comparison, his reign (of ~34 years) lasted more than twice as long as Augusto Pinochet’s rule in Chile, and considerably longer than the military regimes in neighboring Brazil (21 years) and Argentina (23 years, total).
And lo, since the end of an oppressive one party state, the land-locked country has enjoyed a peace and prosperity that has handily outpaced its peers. From 2000 to today, Paraguay has averaged growth (measured by real GDP) of an impressive ~4–4.2% per year. That’s a cumulative total of between 160-180% since the turn of the century.
That leaves Uruguay (~3.0–3.5%), Brazil (~2.1–2.4%) and Argentina (~1–2%) in the dust. Here’s how it looks over the first quarter of this century, cumulative:
A stroll down the downtown area reveals hints of a glorious past… but with the scars and dilapidation so common to nations long fallen to the hubris and folly of man as political animal. (See the short clip, above.)
And yet, with Paraguay’s new found stability, another market is burgeoning just down the road. We stayed in the up and coming Villa Morra barrio, about 20 minutes drive from the historic center… where boutique hotels, trendy stores, and gourmet restaurants and cafes line the streets.
More on that story, and what a difference even a little liberty can make to a nascent economy, in coming Notes…
In the meantime, please enjoy our musings from the past week, in which we offered a humble and pithy rejoinder to Marx’s loathsome manifesto and looked ahead, with the guidance of guest columnist MN Gordon, to the future of money as we know it. Please enjoy…
And now for your Notes From the End of the Week…
Final Notes…
They say “the sum is greater than the parts,” and certainly these Notes would be all the less were it not for the growing community of members whose thoughts and insights enliven our comments section.
Herewith, a selection of our favorite member comments from last week’s Notes. First, from our Capitalist Manifesto column…
And these, from MN Gordon’s excellent write up on the CLARITY Act, and what it could mean for your money, your privacy and your financial security…
Thanks again to all our Notes members who bring their thoughts and comments to bear on our humble scribbles. We don’t always have time to respond individually, but we do read each and every comment.
If you’re not a member yet, but would like to join our band of cheerful skeptics, independent thinkers and irreverent head scratchers, you can correct that cosmic injustice and have your say on the issues of the day by joining our Notes community right here…
We’ll see you in the comments section next week. Until then, enjoy your weekend…
…and stay tuned for more Notes From the End of the World…
Cheers,
Joel Bowman
