Pope Francis has also rejected some of the traditional trappings of the Papacy (1):
For his unveiling as pope Wednesday to the throng in St. Peter's Square, he shunned a special fur-trimmed red half-cloak and golden cross in favor of plain white vestments and his usual iron cross. To go pray at a church in central Rome on Thursday, he hopped into a regular Vatican sedan, not the papal limousine. He prefers a simple miter to more elaborate, richly decorated headgear.
He reportedly has more simple living arrangements than his predecessor.(2)
Not as frugal or simple as Mujica, but a big shift from his predecessor, Benedict, who "loved the pomp and circumstance." (1)
I think it's no coincidence that both the Pope and Mujica are luxury-averse. Demonstrations of wealth in Argentina (and Uruguay, as we are almost the same country) are considered poor taste or even indecent. We even have a word for it, "Grasa" meaning "fat".
There's been somewhat of a trend in that direction since Pope John Paul I in 1978 kicked it off by downplaying some of the royal-seeming aspects of the papacy: he switched to using "I" instead of the royal "we", and opted for a simpler inauguration ceremony instead of being crowned with the papal tiara in the traditional coronation. John Paul II continued some of that trend towards more informality, though Benedict moved a few things back in the other direction (not so far as to bring back the tiara, though).
He apparently did the same thing as a cardinal in B.A.; he took an apartment near the "palace" the cardinal normally resides in; you can see pictures of it online.
There is also the example of Evo Morales of Bolivia, who chose not to move into the Presidential Palace, and still lives in the same small modest apartment with his wife and roommates.
I'll tell you what I told my deeply catholic father when he mentioned this; once they start sending out engineers and doctors instead of missionaries, then I'll be impressed.
Always wondered; if there is a god, is stuff like this a demonstration of his contempt for humanity or proof that he does indeed have a sense of humor?
About the populist act: the presidential palace itself was not used as a homeless shelter, just the barbecue (has a roof) (that is kind of "luxurious" for the poor standards of living down here)
If you're planning to move, please note that we have a state that charges you 23% of taxes on ALL products and services, plus a 20% to 35% of taxes over your earnings.
And what you get for free if you're middle class? nothing, you just pay for lower class benefits.
Also real state is crazy, properties on the nicest neighborhoods (nice for the standards here obviously) cost more than an apartment in Manhattan.
Everything has a ton of taxes because upper class must support lower class.
The problem with that wonderful idea is that lower class gets now a lot of benefits for free, and they don't want to work more to get out of lower class and start paying to help other lower class citizens obviously.
Since Mujica is the president more and more stuff is getting taxes to help his social help strategies, making worker class people flee the country.
I won't be worried about working and paying taxes if some of that is reflected around in the country, but all the money goes to pay state employees or health care to unemployed people (health care system which is about to collapse) or the state retirement system (since there's lower and lower workforce this one will collapse in a few years too).
If you want to buy anything imported, you got a huge tax over that too.
For example cars have 100% of taxes, if you buy a car for 10k in other places here it costs 20.
Public spaces are dirty as hell, and the level of security is very low (you can get mugged because somebody wants your sneakers).
Mujica may have good ideas, but the execution is very poor and the outcome is terrible.
He is the kind of guy who fixes the world chatting on a bar, not a president.
Come on, the rest of the world is not "children" they are adults which intentionally lie and deceive the larger population into prohibition and other things that fuel criminality and state oppression.
"Weed!" That only the State can grow and sell (Smoking it was always legal, and buying/selling has always been and will continue to be illegal).
If you think Uruguay is a "liberal dreamboat", as one Gawker article said, then please, move in. We can even exchange citizenships. If misery is your thing, then by all means, do whatever country you live in a favor, and move to Uruguay. It's not like this continent can get any worse.
Nothing you mentioned sounds bad at all (and the translation of that article seemed pretty poor, so hard to draw conclusions). I would LOVE to live in a more "socialist" country. I'd much rather be poorer in a place where my basic needs are met and I don't have to fear starvation or freezing to death if I catch an unlucky break. Instead of a rising tide lifting all boats, I'd rather lower all the boats but make sure that none of them sink.
I live in a more socialist country where health care and education are free, and where we have have a good balance between work and personal time and I hope it'll stay the same despite the international pressure. I don't know why "socialism" is such a bad word in the US. Probably propaganda from the rich to keep their privileges.
I had the chance to live in the US for a couple of years (it was a child dream of mine to do so) and now I have much more mixed feelings about its ideology. Overall, I think I have a better life in Europe.
3) Why do so many people think its a choice between the two, socialism and capitalism? What people want is a sensible compromise where both systems work to service all of society's needs, instead of a single system which can only benefit one part of society. No one serious thinks pure, exclusive socialism is the answer to anything? Its not. Neither is pure exclusive capitalism. Simply, capitalism raises the money to pay for socialism to provide a useful work force and services for capitalism. We need a balance.
Absolutely! Although she's been politically forced, Merkel is setting up minimum eages in Germany, while Raul Castro has issued some (however mildly) free-enterprise initiatives, and something like that is coming up in China. Leave dogma to the ivory towers.
The frame of debate provided by Anglo Saxon media/politics does not allow one to think that such ideals exist or are worth striving for. We are wage slaves.
Do you even know where the parent poster is living?
Since healthcare in _my_ "socialist" (from a USA point of view) country certainly isn't generally paid for by taxes but by insurance fees. (Exception: the unemployed are covered by social security, which is an insurance system partially backed from the tax pool)
The only "socialist" part here is that they make it hard to avoid the system (that is, leech off from others when you eventually get sick and end up in the ER, incurring costs higher than your net worth)
Money is fungible. Generally, the higher level of services is paid for by the higher level of overall taxation - you can call it fees or whatever, it doesn't change the fact that on average, you are left with less disposable income. This might be fine as a societal choice, but just don't think it's free.
It's no free, but it's shared on everybody in a way that we don't feel it's a burden, and everybody gets access to decent healthcare without having to worry about it.
"the higher level of services is paid for by the higher level of overall taxation"
Not necessarily. You can also try to reduce the cost of the service. Healthcare in most European countries costs less than in the US for the same service (for instance medical acts prices can be largely controlled by the state).
Honestly, I don't know much about economics. However I think it's fair to say that in that particular field, what may be great on paper may not work in practice. The theoretical models are so remote from real life that I'm not sure they provide much value. So it essentially boils down to ideology.
If one has to be dogmatic, I would privilege "free" healthcare and education to private property and free market.
High taxes are fine with me as long as I, and everyone else, also get a high level of services. In some sense it is understandable that middle-class Americans have a distaste for taxation since most of the tax money just ends up being funneled to the upper-class through corporate subsidies, grants, tax credits, and warfare.
According to the article he is a former bank robber who had shootouts with the police. I hope he's changed since then, but robbing banks tends to lead to long prison sentences in any country I know of (unless you're a banker, but that's another story...).
Now, I'm not claiming to know anything specifically wrong with him, though an endorsement from the Daily Mail generally has the opposite effect for me.
Well yes, it's true that I have no way of knowing that he was actually guilty, that he got a fair trial, etc. But assuming he actually was guilty (a potentially bad assumption), then the prison sentence itself was not objectively unreasonable (it's within striking distance of an average sentence), though the prison conditions very well might have been unreasonable.
Don't forget, for most Americans... one unexpected hospital bill is all that stands between them and financial ruin. USA can be an okay place to be as long as you don't get sick...
The vast majority of Americans even pre-ACA had either government-provided insurance or employer group insurance, neither of which would lead to "unexpected hospital bills". Even the existing private insurance market was pretty reliable here ("rescission" was vanishingly rare).
So I'm curious how you came up with "most Americans".
The article uses Brazil as a bad example, when in fact it's a country where 20+ million were lifted out of poverty by welfare systems, investments in education and economic growth in the past half decade.
This attempt to paint a picture of left-wing governments as condemning citizens to a "median life" and "bread and sausage" is also used by the right-wing in Brazil, and bears no relation to reality. The nobody is going to get rich line means that nobody will profit in excess from your work, not that you will be prevented from getting richer if you really want to. E.g. nordic countries, switzerland...
Is it as bad as Brazil? I have Uruguayan citizenship but never quite "exercised" it i.e. I've never lived and worked in Uruguay. I grew up in the border with Rivera though, and it was a much nicer place than Livramento on the Brazilian side: good street lighting, WAY better streets and sidewalks, nice parks, cops patrolling the streets. I remember finding it much safer to stay out late with my friends in Rivera than in Livramento. And not to mention the duty free shops where we could buy electronics and stuff for a much lower price than anywhere in Brazil :)
Can you give more specifics about your complaints, especially about Uruguay? I've had the opportunity to work with several people in the past year in Uruguay, Columbia, Brazil, and Argentina. The consensus has been uniformly positive that Uruguay's economy and politics are stable, the tech workers have plenty of opportunity and good wages. Some of the taxes and import duties are tough, but better there than in Argentina, for example. Thoughts? I'm honestly curious.
It's very nice to read about a political leader who renounces to the
ostentation people in power usually have. However I am a bit concerned for
the man's security. Since he can't be corrupted, assassination would
be an option for a powerful group that sees him as an obstacle. For
example, it's very plausible that a mafia would see its revenues drop
from the sales of cannabis, and so would have strong interests to have
cannabis illegal - I don't know the revenue the mafia generates from
cannabis, I'm just taking this as an example, and for that reason
would try to assassinate Mujica hoping his successor would be more
malleable. However as a former guerrillero Mujica must know well what
he is doing about his security.
Having said that I do hope his example of leading a simple life even
at the highest level will be replicated.
> However I am a bit concerned for the man's security. Since he can't be corrupted, assassination would be an option for a powerful group that sees him as an obstacle.
The biggest risk to South American leaders has tended to be agents of the US government. No security detail is going to achieve much against another illegally-financed Contra campaign, a Grenada invasion, or a replay of Chile.
Gee, it sounds awful. On recent tax reform:
"Especially surprising was the lack of opposition from the upper strata of Uruguayan society, who would almost assuredly pay more taxes as a result of the reforms.... There are few associations or organizations that unite the country’s elite even today, and Uruguay’s political parties tend to develop broad “catch-all” coalitions that refrain from aligning to closely with the wealthy and alienating the majority of voters. Thus, the economic elite tend to have very weak influence on political decision making, including tax reforms." http://www.wilsoncenter.org/publication/Uruguay_Taxation_201...
I think any elite above a certain dollar amount or level of power, would just go elsewhere. Isn't Uruguay right beside Argentina, and Paraguay, for instance? And you can get a residency visa for Uruguay if you can show $500 a month income (I am told).
Actually, Uruguay seems like a cool place to hang out... will add to bucket list.
I lived in Uruguay for almost a year, before moving on to Paraguay.
When I left Uruguay 2.5 years ago, applying for residency was changing a bit. Apparently, nowadays, you need to show you have "enough income to support yourself". The people I know say that's usually around $1500/month. Also, expect it to take at least 18 months to finally complete your residency. It took over 2 years for some people I knew. However, you can still live there while your application is in process (no visa runs needed).
If you've been reading anything that says it's "cheap" to live in Uruguay, it's probably several years out of date. Inflation seemed to be around 15% a year. Personally, I was spending about $2000-2500/month to live there by myself, and I wasn't living extravagantly (other than living in a decent neighborhood).
Uruguay doesn't manufacture much of anything, and imported goods have a 60% duty, along with the standard 21% IVA (Value Added Tax). So, electronics are about twice the price of what you'd pay in the US.
It's also not a very entrepreneurial place. There is some software development there, which can have some tax advantages. But prepare yourself for a very bureaucratic place, where things don't move quickly, and taxes/fees are high.
Uruguay may be a place you'd end up loving, but if you base your views about it on what you've read from International Living's website, you're going to be in for a big shock.
Uruguay is probably among the most expensive places to live in currently (I'm Uruguayan, with family in Europe and Canada, so I can compare).
Cars are the most expensive in the world (at least 100% over US list price, often 200%, so a Honda Civic is a rich man's car and I'm not joking).
Salaries are South American standard, U$ 2000 / month is a HUGE salary, yet it doesn't get you that far !
Electronics are also expensive.
Housing is really expensive, rent is higher than anywhere in the U.S. excepting New York or San Francisco, unless you go to REALLY bad neighbourhoods.
And as scott says, it's really bureaucratic.
The only really big pro is that healthcare is good - basic stuff for free and really good coverage for what an American would consider incredibly cheap prices (U$ 70/month gets you coverage that includes house visits and emergency services which I've heard are impossible at any cost in the US, and U$ 100/month gets you into the very best hospital in the country.
The country is nice, we have nice beaches, I believe the people are friendly, etc. but that's true in several places :)
Think about it. Everyone gets a free computer from the state. Of course only a percentage of those will learn how to program it, but imagine what an experienced professional software developer could do in a country like that, with a ready source of junior developers who all speak fluent Spanish, the second largest language group worldwide after Mandarin. If you are good at coaching/mentoring younger developers then Uruguay sounds like a good country to move to and start a software business. You would handle the English language versions and your colleagues would do the Spanish language version. Mobile apps, web apps.
First of all, not everyone gets a free computer. Only those kids who go to public schools. That is the "poorer" that can't pay a private school, and the relatively rich that live in richer neighborhoods where the public school doesn't suck.
The teachers really don't understand almost nothing about computers and can't teach how to use them properly (from a techie point of view).
Also, as another commenter correctly states, Uruguay isn't a very entrepeneurial country and it is very bureacratic.
> I think any elite above a certain dollar amount or level of power, would just go elsewhere. Isn't Uruguay right beside Argentina, and Paraguay, for instance?
I suspect they might have a culture similar to Spain, in the respect that it's much less common for people to move around. Young adults often live at home well into their twenties, and go to university in their home town, and friend and family groups are usually in the local area. If almost everyone you know lives in one place, to move away is a much greater step, even if you are wealthy.
Uruguay people fume when they read all those Mujica praising articles.
I saw lots of Uruguyans upset on Reddit, and I have some Uruguyan roommates that explained to me why they hate Mujica.
A couple recurring points:
1. Education worsened.
2. Crime skyrocketed, one of my roommates was a cop in Uruguay and said when he was a cop there was about 350 arrests per year, now there is that number in one month and only in the capital, and for more violent crimes, like murder, where the most serious crime he usually arrested someone was stealing without using force.
3. Although the president is populist and socialist, somehow people now are starving, my roommates are here in Brazil to earn money to ship to their families, and they said this was not necessary before Mujica, one claims that the government took 150000 USD that his mother left in a savings account.
4. Mujica openly bribed voters. Several expat Uruguyans repeated the story that Mujica paid airfare to anyone willing to go back to Uruguay during elections and vote for him.
5. Mujica is fake poor. Although he gives away his salary, the population believes he gets a cut from Brazilian and Argentinean gold laundered there.
6. Marijuana was made legal only to increase government revenue, not in form.of taxes, but by having a law mandated monopoly.
There are lots of other complaints, these are the common ones.
Marijuana was made legal only to increase government revenue, not in form.of taxes, but by having a law mandated monopoly
So what? It's better for the money to end up in state hands than in the hands of a multi-national mafiya network. Hey, I bet the US budget crisis could be solved by properly taxing drugs and shutting down law enforcement/DoC institutions not needed for a "War On Drugs" any more...
I thought the pandering to the underbelly ideology would only be celebrated among the reddit crowd. Sad to see that hn has been increasingly infected with these ideas as well.
Sure, I am all for supporting the homeless and needy, but come on, re-purposing the presidential residence as a homeless shelter? That is the epitome of a populist gesture!
If he is the president, he should act like a president, dress like a president and live like a president. I, at least, would want my country be represented among equals.
Inviting over other heads of states to your two bedroom apartment in the suburbs might be cute if you are pandering to certain segments of the voting population. But unless he wants to become the Mother Teresa of international politics this is just a joke.
I don't understand your indignation. Just because this guy is in a minority compared to most presidents does not mean he is wrong.
"Infected with these ideas", really? Is it not you who has a fossilized thinking in regard to what other people should do? "he should act like a president, dress like a president and live like a president". Why, because you say so? I believe that if he is the president then he should act respectfully to his citizens, of which a lot still live in poverty. Dressing up in the most expensive clothes, living in luxury houses and eating only the finest food is a slap in the face of every person in that country who was not lucky enough to be born in a position that would grant them a good life.
Wow I can't believe there actually is people like you around here, did you ever been in South America or in any "third-world country"? over here almost every president lives on big palaces, and owns extremely expensive cloths and cars, while the rest of us lives in very very poor conditions... they are not representing the common life style of their country, they are just enjoying the benefits of power.
Yeah sure: if you are the president of Austria you may waste the money if your people living like a king of the middle ages, but that's not the case of Uruguay.
The trappings of imperial grandeur still seem alien and disconcerting to the american. We don't have a history of it. For the first ~80 years of the american republic the politicians were mostly retired old guys working part time. The scope of the central government only first reached a european scale in the 1930s. Even then, FDR drove himself and his family around in the family car. Elanor Roosevelt frequently did the cooking in the white house.
With the talk of the pope's scaled down lifestyle, it's funny to read about how weirded out American catholic representatives were at the first vatican council way back in 1869. The pomp was strange, and a lot of the ideas about social hierarchy were strange.
This is really nice to read, but it's not that special. For example, the Dutch prime minister earns €144.000 euros a year. It's a high salary, but nothing at all that affords a palace. A good senior programmer earns the same in the valley, and the taxes here are higher.
I find this whole idea that presidents should be posh and it's super-special if they're not, well, a bit odd and basically thr wrong approach.
We should be amazed, instead, when presidents build ridiculous palaces for themselves, like the White House or Putin's Palace [0]. I don't understand why people can look at the White House with any sense of awe. To me (and I'm about as politically centred as they get), it's a giant show off of the haves towards the have-nots. Nya-nya, look at my fancy big white palace with lots of armed guards and hundreds of expensive paintings.
Generally, heads of states and governments aren't meant to go buy their official residences, they have the use of one provided by the state. The Dutch prime ministers official residence is Catshuis. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catshuis
Also, you're conflating head of state and head of government. Mujica and Putin are heads of state, Rutte is head of government. The Dutch head of state is the king, and he has a couple of palaces at his disposal.
The flip side of that coin is that poorly paid elected officials are much easier to bribe.
In the US Congress (& even Presidents) view elected office as a stepping stone to a better paid corporate retirement. Look at how much Clinton gets paid to speak at Goldman Sachs' events.
I'd go further and say the whole model of a gleaming capital city with ornate temples of governance is well out of date. Most representative government could be handled over conference calls and the internet. You could rent out a convention center somewhere a few times a year to hold sessions.
Not so fast. South america is a weird place (disclaimer: I live in Brazil).
The overall vision is that the coming of democracy, after a history filled colonization, monarchies and military dictatorships in most countries, has been a net win; but at the same time, the presidential figure gets a disproportionate amount of worshiping in all of those, which is a sign that the democracy has not fully matured.
As positive as the bills passed by Mujica may be, the notion that the president has to be some sort of Robin Hood, Batman of the poor, is problematic, as it inflates the State, turns the legislative power useless, and has a tendency to pass popular policies, as opposed to good policies.
EDIT: Brazil is falling prey to that ideology, as many other countries around here, where the approval of the president is at an all time high, despite the government's failure in addressing all the systemic issues (education, crime, public health, infra-structure, foreign investment). There's an awful cognitive dissonance between what the population perceives and what results are, mainly because the poor are misinformed and cannot judge (the government will always blame an external force: the opposition, capitalism, USA, whatever), and the middle-class prefers to ignore reality (for them, it's better to have an incompetent, but left-wing government than to forfeit their ideologies).
> has a tendency to pass popular policies, as opposed to good policies
Isn't that the point of a democracy?
What do you think how many wars, regime changes and dictatorships (all sponsored by the US) South America would have seen in the last 50 years if every single one of those aggressions had to pass a popular democratic vote in the first place?
I do not think that there ever has been a majority in any country (where the basic needs of everyone is met) that would consistently vote pro war.
I my view the real problem is that we only get those "good policies" and never the chance to choose or at least vote for policies we actually like.
>1972 Imprisoned again. Remains in jail for more than a decade, including two years' solitary confinement at the bottom of a well, where he speaks to frogs and insects to maintain his sanity.
There's something amazing about politicians who spend decades in prison but still have the drive to go into politics afterwards (e.g. Mandela).
"The president is a former member of the Tupamaros guerrilla group, which was notorious in the early 1970s for bank robberies, kidnappings and distributing stolen food and money among the poor. He was shot by police six times and spent 14 years in a military prison, much of it in dungeon-like conditions."
I don't know much about the guy, but I would recommend doing more extensive research on his and politics in Uruguay before thinking about moving there.
I spent over 2 years in Central and South America, many months in a few countries. I didn't get to spend very long in Uruguay, but it seemed great to me.
Uruguay's population is 3.3 million, which is a bit smaller than Oklahoma, for comparison. It's not shocking to me that a head of state of a small country like that doesn't have all the trappings and security a of a country of 100mm / 300mm / a billion people.
Uruguay has 3.3 million people, so they collect tax from that many to spend on important stuff like schools, firemen and healthcare.
The US has 310 million people, so they collect tax from that many to spend on important stuff like schools, firemen and healthcare.
The fact that the US has more people to collect taxes from means it's spendings pot is obviously much bigger, but that absolutely does not mean it can be wasted on "trappings" for the leaders. Each and every person still needs all the basic services, so at the end of the day, there is the same basic amount per person to spend.
Why do you think that a country with more taxpayers has more money for "trappings"?
Why do you think that a country with more taxpayers has more money for "trappings"?
"The trappings" are essentially a fixed cost at any scale of country.
Let's say you need a palace, a security detail, a motorcade, and a jet to have all of "the trappings" for the ruling family. If you assign some costs to these things, say $500k/yr for the palace, $1mm/yr for security, $500k/yr for motorcade, and $10mm/yr for the jet, you can figure out the annual cost -- $12mm/year in this example. So in a country with only 3.3 million people, that's $3.60/citizen/year for the ruling family to have their trappings. In a country with 310 million people, that would only be $0.038/citizen/year.
Even if you need more security, or a bigger motorcade, or a more expensive plane, you're still on the magnitude of pennies/person/year instead of dollars/person/year.
The size of the head of state is rather constant, and that is the only size discussed here – of course the underlying bureaucracy grows larger in larger countries, but that doesn’t mean the president can suddenly be in two jets at the same time.
Sure, the president can't. But since the size of the country is much larger, there's the governors and mayors of large cities which govern about as many people as the head of Uruguay and I'm fairly certain that each of those has a "palace" about as big as the presidential palace in Uruguay, a motorcade, a security detail larger than 2 armed guards and neither of them showed up on a vespa after elected or - for that matter - any time at all.
I agree with you on stuff like schools, firemen, and healthcare. But it's a different calculation for a head of state. When 300mm people look to an individual as a leader (rather than 3mm people) there are 100x as many threats to their security via disgruntled citizens, crazy people, etc, so physical security has to scale.
It's like saying, "why does the mayor of my town not need the same number of secret service as the president?" There are just far fewer things they feel the need to defend from.
Rather than spending money "defending" your leaders, wouldn't it be better if you addressed the issues and actually figured out why people want to cause harm to their leaders?
You know, many developed countries don't even have a security force for their leaders, and for example, the ex-Prime Minister of Australia went jogging all the time by himself, in whatever city he happens to be in.
#2 They have some reason for doing so (Gavrilo Princip, Booth, probably Oswald).
There. Figured it out. As it happens, there are probably 100x as many nuts in the US as Uruguay, and probably 10,000,000 times more possible motives to kill the head of state/head of government/commander in chief/international celebrity who holds the US's highest office. Now you try and fix those two things.
Perhaps it is as simple has having more enemies because you have more citizens under your rule as a bigger country. after all no president has been assassinated by a foreign plot.
The size of your surplus will depend on the size of your country.
Let's say that a country can afford 0.01% of GDP (number pulled out of nether regions) for Presidential luxuries. That would mean that the US can spend about $1.5 billion/year on Presidential motorcades and airplanes and housing and so forth, while Uruguay could spend about $4.9 million. It's a vast difference.
While scale doesn't really matter for stuff like schools, firemen, and health care, it does matter here, because the President doesn't scale. It's one guy no matter how big and rich the country is, and if it's bigger and richer, then there's more to spend on that one guy.
Estonia has a population of 1.3 million, and the head of state certainly has all of those 'trappings' and security etc. It's more about a deliberate choice of how the country's money is spent.
I think the 'current' design of the parliamentary chamber is from the '20s - the austerity is probably accidental and a sign of it's age more than anything else.
A homeless shelter is "meaningless"? Wow. I could understand downplaying its significance (e.g. the leader of a country could do more good with policy that improves his country's economy) but giving people shelter is not "meaningless" no matter how you slice it.
Nothing wrong with a shelter. However the the act of designating the presidential palace as a homeless shelter is meaningless because it a) doesn't actually fix anything (one shelter does not a social policy make and has no wider impact - and that's what national governments concern themselves with) b) there is no good reason to re-purpose that particular building, as opposed to another building or spending a few extra bucks and building another. I may be showing my cynical side, but it seems the only reason this was done was to score some cheap PR points with the voters.
I see the problem. You meant "meaningless" as in "it doesn't tell us anything about whether this person is a great guy or not". I interpreted "meaningless" as in "this act has no consequences and does not actually help people as it intends to do".
The man spent two years in solitary confinement at the bottom of a well. He has a much greater appreciation for simple living than the typical head of state and how even small gestures can mean a lot to people. Using the palace for himself and his family provides far less marginal utility than using it to house many homeless people.
Oh I'm sure they COULD if they really wanted one, you just don't generally have the same security concerns you have with a large country. It's just not as surprising to me that they decided they didn't need one.
The security should scale in some relation to the threat.
The more resources a country has, the higher the profile a target that head of state will be. Would a politically motivated group want to make a name for themselves or make a statement, they're more likely to attack a first world leader than a third world leader.
Domestic threats also likely scale at least linearly, and possibly more quickly, with population.
I think we overdo it with our post-9/11 security theater, seemingly more interested in full employment than meaningful improvements in the life of Americans, but I'm quite sure that large, rich nations' heads of state face greater threats than smaller, less wealthy nations.
Maybe not the trappings, but the security is a function of how many enemies the politician in question and its country have.
The downside of "liberating" countries by invading them (or funding revolutions) and installing puppet governments is that some part of the population gets really annoyed with that.
I'd love to live in a world where every president could live without a human shield around them, not because they would be more accessible to their people (which would be a nice plus) but because it would be a symptom the world has become a safe place.
I'm Uruguayan and I love my country but please, Argentina is at least 2 or 3 times cheaper in everything and you have way more options and things to do.
Also, I've just came from Buenos Aires, Argentina yesterday, me and my friends feel way more safe in Buenos Aires' streets than in Montevideo. We are really far from perfect.
Mhj... Palaces, motorcades and "frills" are designed to allow the governors to work from the "abstract", which is the only sensible way to make good, consistent and long-term policy.
The first question that comes to mind is... Is the palace his property to turn it (or just part of it) into a shelter? Because being president does not turn you into the owner of the palace.
What is the former presidential driver working at?
I live in Uruguay and I can tell that all this Mujica thing has a lot of marketing on top of it. He is just a drunk old man that hasn´t done anything successful in his life. He is really unqualified for the job he is doing and usually uses the slogan "I tell what I think" because he is usually drunk.
Mujica is probably one of the better leaders in South America. Mainly by not doing too much instead of the big bold moves that his colleagues at the other side of the Rio Plata favor so much.
Since the production of cocaine shifted more southwards to satisfy the always needy users of the Western nations after it became harder and harder to produce in Colombia all countries in the region have rising problems with security.
We need more leaders like this in the US. This man understood the debilitating condition of poverty, and despite all the odds, succeeded with no help from anybody.
For his unveiling as pope Wednesday to the throng in St. Peter's Square, he shunned a special fur-trimmed red half-cloak and golden cross in favor of plain white vestments and his usual iron cross. To go pray at a church in central Rome on Thursday, he hopped into a regular Vatican sedan, not the papal limousine. He prefers a simple miter to more elaborate, richly decorated headgear.
He reportedly has more simple living arrangements than his predecessor.(2)
Not as frugal or simple as Mujica, but a big shift from his predecessor, Benedict, who "loved the pomp and circumstance." (1)
1. http://articles.latimes.com/2013/mar/15/world/la-fg-pope-tra...
2. http://www.thecatholictelegraph.com/pope-of-the-people-pope-...