Austrian Knights

Ecuador’s elections would take place on October 15, 2023. The unlikely run-off between Luisa Gonzalez and Daniel Noboa would define who becomes President for nearly the next 18 months.      The Myth of the Rational voter states the following: your vote (a single vote) would not make a difference in the outcome, the voter is more informed of things such as: a TV or media influencer than the political implication of the candidate’s plans for the country.  And  finally, according to the median voter model  the candidates seek to achieve the votes of the people whom didn’t vote for them on the first round.  As Bryan Caplan states in his book “The Myth of the Rational Voter”: “Familiarity with politicians’ voting records and policy positions is predictably close to nil even on high profile issues, but amazingly good on fun topics irrelevant to policy. As Delli Carpini and Keeter remark: During the 1992 presidential campaign 89 percent of the public knew th...

Source: BBC News Mundo  ( Luisa González & Daniel Noboa) Ecuador’s Presidential election took place on August, 20 th , 2023. According to the Consejo Nacional Electoral (CNE) official information, with more than 98% of the ballots in, it shows that Luisa González and Daniel Noboa are headed to the runoff in October this year. González, a disciple and loyal follower of Rafael Correa, achieved the 33.6% of the electorate; while Noboa, a self-proclaimed “progressive” –left-leaning- entrepreneur and son of banana mogul, got 23.4% of the ballots on Sunday. In other words, only 5 out of ten people supported both candidates in this election. Hence, 50% of the other constituents voted for other candidate (one out of the other 6 candidates that run for office) that means the October runoff duo have much work to do to get bigger support within the next 50 days.      However, the story goes beyond the introducing data presented in the earlier paragraph. The results show tha...

Ecuador adopted the US Dollar as its currency on January, 2000. The country at the time had almost a 100% rate of inflation and it used the US currency for major transactions such as: house, cars, and importations purchases, to name a few. However, there was a huge social cost of implementing the US Dollar in Ecuador. The political cost took a big hit when President Mahuad was ousted due to his decision in 2000.      Former President Jamil Mahuad in his book called: "This is how we dollarize Ecuador" (2021), makes a detailed account of the economic conditions in which the country was prior to the execution of the executive decree to use the US dollar as the country's official currency.  Mainly, in its chapter IX "Hyperinflation and freezing." Mahuad mentions the following: “We then had a triple run: a bank run (due to the withdrawal of bank deposits), an exchange run (due to the loss of Central Bank reserves caused by the purchase of dollars) and a flight of cap...

 Javier Milei, 52, is the leader of the Argentinian Political Movement La Libertad Avanza. Milei is self-proclaimed Libertarian who is into politics as a Congressman since 2021 and a political commentator for a few more years. Milei won the primaries in Argentina, PASO, this past Sunday. La Libertad Avanza achieved a 30% of the national vote. This result is a surprise for most of the people even outside of that country. However, there are different takes on the outcome of this electoral process. According to Pablo Touzon, political analyst, Milei’s victory is the result of failures of Mauricio Macri’s and Alberto Fernandez’ governments. Even, there are some people who compare Milei to Donald Trump and Jair Bolsonaro. Natalia Aruguete, journalist, so that Melei’s vote comes an “antiestablishment” type-of-movement or a population feeling due to the years that Argentina and its citizens suffered. (Sourtech, n.d.) Nonetheless, Javier Milei is truly a genuine politician who looks ...

The killing of political opponents is not a new occurrence in history. Back in 44 B.C., Julius Cesar was assassinated by 60 Roman Senate Opposition members after he was stabbed for roughly 30 times. (National Geographic Society, 2022). However, in more recent years there have been other killings of political opponents. For example, in 2003 left-wing opposition leader Chokri Belaid of Tunisia was killed outside of his house; on April 2021, Chad President Idriss Deby Itno was killed – he was declared elections’ winners that year-; Japanese former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was murdered during a campaign speech in 2022. ( A Look at High-Profile Political Assassinations This Century , n.d.) However, political foes also took care of disputes in a different way, especially in the US, where duels were normal. For example: Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton, Button Gwinnett and Lachlan McIntosh, and Secretary of State Henry Clay and Senator John Randolph in 1826, dueled due to different circu...

     Guillermo Lasso was elected as President of Ecuador in 2021. Since May of that year, Lasso demonstrated difficulties in managing its own political party, networking and lobbying with the National Assembly, and most of all keeping close his alliance with the Partido Social Cristiano’s Leader, Jaime Nebot.      Lasso backed his presidency initial months with a successful Covid-19 vaccination campaign, which was supported mainly by international organizations. But further than that; Lasso’s government is a failure. In an earlier post of this blog, it’s mentioned the following: “ With this in mind and having elections for president in Ecuador in 2024; time is an enemy for Lasso’s presidency. Ecuador’s President needs to increase speed in changes, reforms, and lobbying through a divided Assembly (Congress) to obtain legislation that allows: economic freedom, stronger rule of law, and presenting a positive environment for foreign investment. All these ch...