According to the report of the commission set up by President Aylwin (an antagonistic successor to President Pinochet): In a seventeen-year period, 2,279 people died, including members of the armed forces, terrorists, and possibly innocent civilians. "Most of them," Crozier states, "died during the first months of military rule, when Chile was in effect a combat zone." By way of comparison, 600,000 people died in the Spanish civil war (2 percent of the population), 375,000 in the American civil war (1.1 percent of the population), and 250,000 in the Guatemalan civil war (2.5 percent of the population)—not to mention the 100 million deaths attributed to socialism by The Black Book of Communism. In a country of 12 million, where a third of the voters had initially supported Allende, the toll was so low that clearly there was no systematic policy of human-rights violations such as would have involved hundreds of thousands of deaths.

 However, I don't know of any accusations of criminal behavior re: Piñera.

This 2004 article appeared as a random past article. I did not comment at the time. I posted the following in a Gallery item in 2008. 

Some people, including Objectivists, have applauded what Chile did to "privatize" its SS-like system. José Piñera, a key figure in the "privatization", even spoke at the 1999 TOC (IOS) Summer Seminar. While I approve what he did under the circumstances, it would be a mistake to say the U.S.A. should follow suit. The Chile situation was a lot different. It did not have the high ratio of retirees to workers that the U.S. has and is going to get much worse as baby boomers retire. Chile had substantial budget surpluses (the U.S. has big deficits), a payroll tax of about 25% (FICA is 12.4%), and benefit amounts had been greatly eroded by very high inflation. There was a high degree of public dissatisfaction with the old system. 

The Wikipedia article on Piñera says the new plan allowed workers to opt out of the government-run pension system and instead put the former payroll tax (10% of wages) in a privately managed Personal Retirement Account (PRA). Thus it is a "forced savings" plan. What it doesn't say is what the payroll tax rate was before the reform. It about 25%. Ergo, to make a similar reform in the U.S.A., firstly the FICA tax rate of 12.4% would need to be hiked by X% (or whatever goes to the PRA) to 12.4% + X%!

Steve, that's easy to say philosophically. The hard problem is people who are already receiving SS benefits or soon will. Whence the money to pay them? Or do you simply say "tough luck, no more money" to many people with SS as their sole or major source of income and who have paid into the system for many years?

(Edited by Merlin Jetton on 6/27, 11:00am)

Steve, I basically agreed with what you just wrote at least twice on RoR years ago, here and here.

The government is not going to go broke.  It will never be bankrupt. No matter what you wish for, the problem of the national debt was solved with the creation of the Federal Reserve Bank. Moreover, we saw this work with the Mortgage Crisis and the Bush-Obama bailouts. It is all done electronically. The printers do apparently run off banknotes, but that is mostly to give them sinecure. Although the money supply tripled. Prices today are not three times what they were eight years ago.  

The banks did not lend out the magic numbers. They just rebalanced their books.  Similarly, the Federal government, receiving FRNs for their Treasury bonds just rebalances the books. The Federal Reserve banks likewise note the entries.  Not much else changes. 

Yes, the slow, eroding inflation continues.  But all of the conspiracy thinking will not explain away the price of gold.  Its number one users are jewelers with money hoaders being a distant - though pervasive - second.  

The secret rulers of the world apparently have it under control... at least the money aspect of it...  ISIS and Iran and North Korea, not so much.

(Edited by Michael E. Marotta on 6/30, 4:17am)

The discussion is about social security, and replacing it with market alternatives, as proposed successfully for Chile by Jose Piñera.  The related claims that the US govenment is going to be bankrupt and that the dollar is going to be worthless because of social security are groundless.  

I understand the mechanics of inflation.  As I said above, the slow, continuous, and continual erosion of the dollar is a fact. Everything "costs more" even as wages "rise" because the dollar is getting "smaller."  However, the Chicago monetists, led by Milton Friedman, long ago showed other conservatives such as Paul Volcker, Alan Greenspan, and Janet Yellen how to "manage the economy" to prevent, mitigate, and remediate the worst consequences of socialism.  

I point out that again even though the money supply tripled with the Bush-Obama bailouts, the general price level did not follow. The banks were prohibited from lending out the new money. 

Moreover, the absolute bottom line value behind the U.S. dollar is the willingness of everyone - including the active writers here on RoR - to accept it in payment. That is not going to change.

(Edited by Michael E. Marotta on 6/30, 8:57pm)