
Uruguay is the Economist's Country of the Year - dimfisch
http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21591872-resilient-ireland-booming-south-sudan-tumultuous-turkey-our-country-year-earths-got
======
JetSetWilly
Apparantly Scotland is "foolhardy" if it opts for "secession", but Ireland,
which already did opt for secession (less pejoratively, secession is typically
known as independence once it is acheived), is a resiliant example to us all,
with its HDI and economy miles above that of Scotland, and that despite a
total lack of oil, and despite a bad housing bust.

Funny, that. You have to be very careful with the Economist because they
nearly always seem to have utterly transparent motiviations for the nonsense
they peddle. In this case it seems like it benefits them to prop up the city
of london and UK with a nice secure oil supply, and they have to perform weird
intellectual handstands to justify why Scotland would be a basketcase while
Ireland is inspirational.

~~~
DanBC
> while Ireland is inspirational.

This Ireland? [http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/politics/eu-chief-
barro...](http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/politics/eu-chief-barroso-no-
backdated-bank-debt-deal-for-ireland-29854504.html)

> _Europe did not cause of the problems for Ireland; Ireland caused a problem
> for Europe, the head of the EU government said._

> _Following the bailout exit, the Government 's bid to get backdated funding
> for the banking sector was dealt a spectacular blow as the head of the
> European Commission blamed the Irish banks, regulators and government for
> the difficulties in the country._

> _Categorically rejecting suggestions Ireland should now be helped by Europe,
> at least in the short to medium term, European Commission President Jose-
> Manuel Barroso cut loose on Ireland._

~~~
anonymousDan
Barroso is far from a neutral observer in all this. Personally I think it is
extremely disengeneous of him to say Europe wasn't a problem for Ireland (and
indeed there were major efforts to row back on the above comments
subsequently). While there's no doubt lax regulation of the banking sector was
the major cause of Ireland's problems initially, it is now widely accepted
that the Irish Government was told in no uncertain terms by the ECB that it
must bail out the banks on its own and that private bondholders were not to be
touched, so as to prevent further contagion in the wider European banking
sector. Thus an Icelandic style solution to Ireland's problems was ruled out,
on pain of withdrawal of all short term funding. Whatever the effects of
burning private bondholders for Ireland's future reputation in the markets, it
would have been a much more just solution (as well as being popular
politically in Ireland). To completely ignore the hit Ireland was forced to
take is thus a bit rich IMHO.

~~~
fauigerzigerk
I agree that it would have been better to put more of the burden of the
housing bust on bondholders. However, Ireland has benefitted tremendously from
Europe over the past decades.

It has received tens of billions in direct financial aid (and I don't mean the
loans that were part of the current bailout). Its European neighbors have
tolerated Irish tax policies that have put Ireland squarely at the center of
the most fanciful tax evasion schemes used by both European and US
corporations.

But it hasn't just been shell companies and tax evasion that has made Ireland
rich. There's also genuine success that wouldn't have been possible if Ireland
hadn't become a gateway into the EU for US corporations like Google.

So before choosing a path that was possible for tiny Iceland, Ireland did have
to ask itself whether a move that could have destabilized the global financial
system and threatened the existence of the EU was consistent with the
solidarity it owes to those who have supported it in the past.

Ireland made the right choice at the time, but I also think that as things
stabalize, it would be a good idea to renegotiate some of the bailout terms.
After all, some of the foreign counter parties that were effectively bailed
out by the Irish government benefitted greatly from the Irish housing boom
while it lasted.

~~~
anonymousDan
Oh sure, I don't necessarily disagree with you, I was just trying to point out
that Barrosso's comments are somewhat one-eyed and far from the final word on
the matter.

------
gruseom
I like this bit of English wit from the article, on Uruguay's cannabis
legalization:

"This is a change so obviously sensible [...] that no other country has made
it."

The Economist doesn't normally bust loose like that. (Edit: or so I thought.)

~~~
dredmorbius
_The Economist doesn 't normally bust loose like that_

Actually, it does. You just have to be aware of their style of humor to catch
it.

~~~
gruseom
Let's see some examples.

~~~
cgh
You clearly aren't a regular reader. The Economist is known for its dry wit,
particularly with image captions.

Anyway, if you want examples, get a subscription..

~~~
gruseom
I'm not a subscriber, but I read quite a few of their articles and I'm pretty
sure I never noticed a sentence like "This is a change so obviously sensible
that no other country has made it."

~~~
jpatokal
I'm not sure exactly what you're looking for, but here's a random sampler:
[http://www.ironicsans.com/2007/06/the_best_and_worst_of_the_...](http://www.ironicsans.com/2007/06/the_best_and_worst_of_the_econ.html)

~~~
gruseom
Ok, those count!

------
cphoton
Uruguayan here, be prepared to face security issues, bad education quality and
very high prices in general if considering moving here.

~~~
poulsbohemian
Can you talk more about this? I have some cousins who moved there who reported
feeling _very_ safe (and they were coming from Switzerland...). I had a
contractor there for a while and the main issue he had with high prices was on
imported electronics due to tariffs. Otherwise, everyone I've spoken to has
said housing, food, etc are very affordable. What's the issue with education,
IE: funding? access?

~~~
GFischer
Depends on where you live. I was robbed twice this year (two laptops, a
Kindle, and all my electronics, which as you mention are twice as expensive
than in the U.S.).

Some neighbourhoods are really safe, I used to live in Punta Carretas for a
while, and it's equivalent to an European city, but many others aren't - never
ever go downtown after dark, and some other neighbourhoods are like the
Brazilian favelas - police doesn't enter there.

Housing is in a bubble right now, it used to be affordable a few years ago but
it's not right now (I had to move to a cheaper neighbourhood because I was
priced out of my rent, went up 20% yearly). Food is a little more expensive
than in Europe.

Education is universal, everyone has access. The country is doing consistently
bad on worldwide tests (the PISA score) and that's being made a big deal.

------
Tombar
Uruguayan here and proud of my little country.

We do have our fair share of issues like any other country on the world, but
overall we are doing pretty good and life here is good.

~~~
Trufa
Uruguayan here too. This makes me quite proud indeed too!

For people that aren't aware, we do have our fair share of problems, Uruguay
is being being given a too romantic view by the international media IMO.

The main ones being IMO (no particular order, and many related):

\- Cases of extreme poverty and "slums" where a lot of people grow up in very
negative environments.

\- Lack of security! Lots of problems with violence and violent robberies.

\- In many cases, not good enough education for the non wealthy, same for the
public health system.

\- A big problem with drug abuse, specially with drugs like "pasta base",
similar to crack.

Definitely gay marriage and cannabis legalization are steps in the right
direction but we have a long way to go.

I agree with the OP though, life is pretty good over Uruguay, I've been living
abroad for a year now and miss the hell out of my country :) It's a very
unique little county, no place like home.

------
djhworld
The article doesn't really explain much as to why they chose Uruguay as CoTY,
merely compressing a few sentences at the end and then just saying "job done"

Did they writer want to get out of the office early for christmas treats or
something?

------
redxblood
I'm from uruguay, and i don't really see this as a good thing. And don't }ook
at our president Mujica as a great leader, he killed douzens during his youth.

~~~
orenbarzilai
You just proved the power of good PR and the most ppl forget the past very
quickly.

~~~
ballard
"Those who cannot remember the past ..." are doomed. Full stop.

~~~
tbastos
This quote is about "drawing wisdom from the past, to interpret current
affairs". It's not about judging people by their past. In fact, if you
research history you will find many examples of people who did grave mistakes
and then went on to do great good later.

~~~
kristofferR
Mandela is a recent example of that.

------
laurent123456
The Economist sure are not too concerned about proper SEO (and probably don't
need to be) - for an article titled "The Economist’s country of the year", the
URL is "resilient-ireland-booming-south-sudan-tumultuous-turkey-our-country-
year-earths-got".

------
petepete
I really hope other countries take note of this approach to tackling the drugs
issue.

Luis Suárez has really pulled this one out of the bag.

~~~
dimfisch
I think Edinson Cavani gave him a hand on that one ;)

------
dimfisch
About cannabis regulation: "This is a change so obviously sensible ... that no
other country has made it."

~~~
rasur
Perhaps I'm mistaken, but.. The Netherlands? I thought it was regulated there
(although I'd have to check on what the state is these days).

~~~
skrebbel
Production isn't regulated, only its sale, in small amounts. It's better than
nothing, but it's still screwed up. If you want to run a coffee shop, you can
safely _sell_ weed without fear of getting in trouble (as long as you don't
sell to minors and don't sell large amounts). However, you still need to buy
what you sell. Growing it is illegal (and prosecuted), buying it is illegal
(and prosecuted). Worse, if you decide not to grow it yourself (and that
surely is the safest option), the only place you can buy it from is organised
criminals.

The sad part here is that the majority of current big parties appear to lean
towards criminalizing drugs entirely again, rather than follow Uruguay's lead
and regulate or nationalize marihuana production.

~~~
rasur
That's sad about the attitude of the political parties - I always had the
Netherlands pegged as a quite progressive, open-minded country.

~~~
skrebbel
That's a dated, but sticky image of us you have there. Fortunately, our
leaders are doing their utmost best to rid ourselves of it, so it shouldn't
take long.

------
rabble
Let's see, Uruguay. I'm from California but i've spent a few years living in
Uruguay and started and ran a tech business in Uruguay. The country is a
special unique place, but it's far from perfect.

Let's start with the good things:

Good Tech Policies

    
    
      * Laptops for every public school child (over 1 million distributed) 
      * Free basic (64k 1 gb per month) internet on every phone line
      * Good 3G/4G coverage over the country
      * Fiber to the home finally provides good broadband
      * No taxes for tech companies profits (there are pay roll taxes)
      * Free education through university, no exams to get in.
      * Goal of %95 renewable electricity production by 2015
      * Lots of small startups / exits (about a dozen a year under $10 million USD)
      * Strong freedom of information laws
      * Good open source / open formats laws for all government data.
    

Other Positive things

    
    
      * Very little corruption (i never came across any, but people complain)
      * Legal Gay Marriage, Abortion, Marijuana, etc... Socially progressive
      * Walkable cities, sidewalk cafes, beaches
      * GMO's are banned, food is natural and unprocessed.
      * Good electoral system, proportional representation
      * Politicians care about building consensus and getting stuff done.
      * Fantastic & cheap health care system
      * Not consumerist, people care more about friends & family than things.
      * No traffic / pollution problems related to cars. 
      * Uruguayans trust their institutions (banks, government, union, church)
      * Atheist! Uruguayans are not religious and the state is officially atheist.
    

But Uruguay's not perfect. There's a lot wrong. The bureaucracy is complicated
with more crazy rules than you can imagine. There's lots of paperwork. There's
a lack of local credit and asset markets to get investment. You can get a new
company easily, but opening a bank account is a real PITA. Credit card
processing and things like that re very hard. Inflation has become a major
problem in Uruguay and when combined with real productivity gains and a strong
currency it means that real prices have risen a LOT. Pay roll taxes are high
but salaries are low. That means many Uruguayans are broke. Car's are very
expensive, gas is expensive, keeping traffic down, but it's a pain. The
quality of things you buy in Uruguay are very very low. Things constantly
break, the market is tiny and customs duties are high.

Uruguay's biggest problem, ironically enough given their being very socially
liberal and open about good public policy, is that Uruguayans are very
conservative. There's no desire to try something new or different. This makes
Uruguay feel like it's living in the past. Stable families, sunday diners,
stay at home housewives, summer vacations in the family beach house or camping
in the same place every year, banks are open from 1 to 4pm, multigenerational
house holds, etc... Uruguay feels like an alternate history version of the
1950's.

Uruguay's a great place to retire. It's not a place with people who want to
change the world, or change their own country to keep up with the Joneses.
It's got it's own path driven by good public policy and a desire not to rock
the boat. It's definitely much better off than any of the other countries in
the region. Few poor people, no rich people, decent quality of life for
everybody.

PS, ignore then trolls. The right wing in Uruguay lost power because they
mismanaged the country and are upset that things are getting better.

~~~
sally777
You're wrong. The majority of Uruguay is religious.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_Uruguay](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_Uruguay)

~~~
rabble
Not like the US, Uruguayans never say they're celebrating easter, they call it
tourism week. People say 'christmas' but the government calls it 'family
day'!!!

Compared to the rest of latin america or the US, Uruguayans are much more like
Europeans in terms of being very secular. That said, Uruguay is culturally
catholic.

The link you provided shows that %40 of the population claims no religion at
all, the highest numbers of any country in the americas. Then on top of that,
looking at church attendance, most 'Catholics' in Uruguay haven't attended
mass in years, and then only for christmas and easter.

------
alpeb
Seems like Uruguay exports a lot of IT services kinda like India does. Any
Uruguayan here that would like to comment about this firsthand?

~~~
gclaramunt
Far from the same scale, but providing IT services (software development and
testing for the most of it) is pretty big here.

~~~
GFischer
I was going to say much the same thing. We're 3 million people , not a billion
like India :) .

But we do have a lot of people working in IT (about 15.000), we export 2% our
GDP in Software, and Indian companies like Tata Consultancy Services have
offices here, serving the US market.

I hope it will grow even more. One positive for uruguayans but negative for
exports is that salaries are much higher than in India or some parts of
Eastern Europe (but a LOT lower than in the U.S.), so we are not so
competitive in the "lowest bidder outsourcing", we should aim to be a high-end
and niche provider, but don't have the culture yet.

Graduates from both public and private universities are very capable but we
need some more training to match U.S. expectations.

I've heard Google doesn't recruit much here because of the lack of PhDs in
computer science (which is a definite lack), and there's a lot of emphasis on
Java and .NET which doesn't help if the market is looking for iOS or Android
or Ruby developers (the Java and .NET outsourcing market being cornered by
indians?).

------
xradionut
If the Economist had any gravitas or courage, they should have chosen Iceland.
:)

------
mathattack
You have to take this from the point of view of the source - the Economist is
the most Classically liberal (libertarian) source out there. As such they are
pro-personal freedom and market freedom. So Uruguay gets it largely on the
back of allowing gay marriage and legalized drug use. It also helps that the
current leader is neither corrupt, nor a strongman.

Their comment about gay marriage was great - that it's a free way to increase
mass happiness. Very profound economics on what I perceived to be a moral
issue!

------
philprx
Why post stuff from a website that is paywalled? I think this is a bit a shame
toward the Hacker News etiquette (does it need to be written?)...

------
dysoco
Can you guys please invade Argentina? I'd really appreciate it.

Thanks.

