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During the Republican debates I noticed that Herman Cain continuously points out that Chile has a really great retirement system and we should adopt that system.I am stunned that most Americans do not know about Chile. Out of the South American countries it just happens to be the most "conservative' of the bunch. You might wonder why it's so conservative. If you will recall back in the 1970's a socialist by the name of Salvador Allende was elected president and intended to nationalize the mines (remember the one the Chileans got stuck in?), but a US company that owned the mine did not like that. The mine company along with several other American capitalistas became angry at Allende. The CIA then orchestrated the ouster of Allende. The man who replaced Allende was a cutthroat dictator named Augusto Pinochet. Pinochet went about slaughtering all those who opposed him. He also did everything in his power to accommodate US businesses. Pinochet's government was characteristic of a fascist government.
Now after having explained that bit of history, Pinochet's minister Jose Pinera helped to establish the retirement system of Chile. It basically is a privately held pension fund that is invested in Chilean businesses. The problem is that it only covered half of the people who paid into it. That's another story entirely.
The problem for me, here, is that a US presidential candidate would find a system that was established by a fascist government to be acceptable. The other problem is that this same candidate would refer to a system under a dictator who slaughtered off people he didn't like on a regular basis. The other problem for me is that people are so ignorant they do not recognize this.
