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29 June 2011

Barackita

When Obama went to Brazil, I was horrified by the results, and I began referring to his foreign trips as his Rainbow Tour, a reference to Eva Peron's 1947 trip to Europe -- as well as a reference to a song from the musical Evita.

To be honest, the bulk of my Argentinian historical knowledge comes from and/or stems from that musical.  (I'm okay with that.  You gotta start somewhere.)  While I'm not naive enough to make Andrew Lloyd Webber my sole source for Argentinian history, there was some niggling thing about Obama that reminded me of the Rainbow Tour -- and the Perons.

Then I came across this nugget from Abraham H. Miller over at Pajamas Media.  Stop reading here and go read what he has to say about Obama & Juan Peron.  It's great stuff.

Oh, fine.  Here's a sample:
Predictably, Peron’s reforms led to a bloated government bureaucracy that drained resources from the private sector. Universal health care and high social security benefits further increased the bureaucracy and monetary liquidity. Pumping money artificially into both social programs and wages caused an inflation rate of 52%, by 1951, coupled with a massive trade deficit — as money chased foreign goods.
Okay.  Now stoppit.  Stop reading here, and go check out Miller's piece.

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