News and visitors from Ecuador
Most readers will have heard of Ecuador’s latest political unrest (summarized here). Briefly, transport workers and the indígenas have been striking against the government’s austerity measures, and especially against the cutting of fuel subsidies (this was done to comply with borrowing conditions set by the International Monetary Fund). Thousands have marched on Quito, blocking roads. President Lenín Moreno has moved the government to Guayaquil.
It was clear that after Rafael Correa’s presidency, Ecuador would shift back toward the right; what wasn’t clear was how far or how speedily. In the election of 2016, I favored Moreno, the candidate of Correa’s party, because I thought he’d shift more gradually than his opponents would. But Correa already had made Ecuador cripplingly indebted to China; and now, perhaps out of necessity, Moreno has resumed dealings with the IMF, which, in the late 1990s, had insisted on detrimentally austere financial measures as borrowing conditions for Latin American countries. From 1997 to 2005, several Ecuadorian presidents were toppled after enacting austerity measures. I fear that history is about to repeat itself.
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My parents arrived in South Bend yesterday to visit little Ada and my own child (whenever he’s born). But it wasn’t easy for them to get here. They traveled from Santo Domingo to Quito several days early, during a lull in the protests. Then they went to the airport twenty hours before takeoff. Had they not done those things, they wouldn’t have made it through.
Anyhow, they’re here. This morning they’re at the Social Security office, dealing with the obstinate bureaucracy of the United States.
♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
On Tuesday, I got a couple of shots. They made me ache as with fever. I was especially miserable yesterday. This morning, my arms still hurt, but I seem to be on the up-and-up.
It was clear that after Rafael Correa’s presidency, Ecuador would shift back toward the right; what wasn’t clear was how far or how speedily. In the election of 2016, I favored Moreno, the candidate of Correa’s party, because I thought he’d shift more gradually than his opponents would. But Correa already had made Ecuador cripplingly indebted to China; and now, perhaps out of necessity, Moreno has resumed dealings with the IMF, which, in the late 1990s, had insisted on detrimentally austere financial measures as borrowing conditions for Latin American countries. From 1997 to 2005, several Ecuadorian presidents were toppled after enacting austerity measures. I fear that history is about to repeat itself.
♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
My parents arrived in South Bend yesterday to visit little Ada and my own child (whenever he’s born). But it wasn’t easy for them to get here. They traveled from Santo Domingo to Quito several days early, during a lull in the protests. Then they went to the airport twenty hours before takeoff. Had they not done those things, they wouldn’t have made it through.
Anyhow, they’re here. This morning they’re at the Social Security office, dealing with the obstinate bureaucracy of the United States.
♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
On Tuesday, I got a couple of shots. They made me ache as with fever. I was especially miserable yesterday. This morning, my arms still hurt, but I seem to be on the up-and-up.