Eduardo Lucita
I thank the organizers for kindly inviting me to be here tonight with you and exchange ideas on the global crisis and its possible impact in Latin America, an international crisis has one dimension whose range and depth are still unknown, daily, new data and evidence that is the most serious crisis of the capitalist system as such since the 30s.
In what follows I will try, as succinctly as possible, give an idea of ??its origins, evolution until today and what their consequences might split our region.

I do not I locate the origin of the crisis in the real estate bubble burst in the U.S., there is much evidence that conditions of crisis of U.S. capitalism is being prepared since long before, however, even though conditions are dragged from long ago , but at this juncture could locate, a little provocatively, in the attack on the Twin Towers in 2001, because this attack allowed the Bush administration to take a series of political and economic measures that drove the U.S. economy from a very low growth and recession that will show in the period 2000 / 2003.

The September 2001 attack on the Bush administration can unify the domestic public opinion regarding military intervention in Afghanistan and Iraq. This redeployment of militarism was accompanied by a sharp drop in interest rates and tax cuts to big business and the sectors with the greatest ability to pay.

You have to take into account the importance of military-industrial complex has for the American economy, there are estimates showing that every dollar that comes from the complex is transformed after a year in four in GDP – which combined with low interest rates and lower tax burden pushed up domestic consumption.
The U.S. consumes more than they produce, and the gap between consumption and production are met by imports, the result is the extraordinary trade deficit that became the order of 6.5% of GDP.

Now this economy also saves less than it invests, this bump is covered by foreign investment, that more tax cuts and credits to finance the war in Iraq and Afghanistan invasions brought the fiscal deficit to 6% of GDP. (Please note that the Clinton administration withdrew, leaving a fiscal surplus of around 200,000 million dollars).
That’s why we talk about the twin deficits. Trade and finance.

In short, the economy began to recover due to strong domestic consumption were five years of growth that impacted positively on the global economy. You must know that, at least so far, 60% of global economic growth is explained by the U.S. Consumer (A digression if I may and we’ll see a little more detail in the seminar we will do Friday and Saturday, but the world economy begins to recover in the 2nd. quarter of 2003, Argentina’s economy began to emerge from the crisis in the 2nd. quarter of 2002, a year earlier. I mean who advanced to the cycle world was better prepared to receive the momentum of global growth.)

In parallel with the recovery there is a significant change to what is known as the international terms of trade. If what was characteristic in the last 40 or 50 years that the Third World countries should continuously enhance its exports of raw materials to offset the increased value of manufactured goods they imported, which was called the “unequal exchange” now is the reverse.

You could say we are going through a period of relative overproduction of manufactured goods, and therefore low prices, and relative scarcity of raw materials, grains, minerals, metals, and energy, and therefore higher prices.
This change in the terms of trade have favored the recovery of Latin America. Virtually all countries in the region grow, some at rates very important as Argentina, Venezuela and Nicaragua, but overall on average grow faster than the world average. “In every country there is a recovery of international reserves, almost all have fiscal and trade surpluses, foreign debts are less burdensome in terms of GDP than in the 90s, in several countries, industrial sector recovery (case Argentina).

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