The Joys of Neo-Liberalism

From 1947 to 1973, Latin America experienced a 70% rise in real wages per capita. States had the capacity to both distribute wealth and sustain growth. They showed no need to subscribe wholesale to the capitalism that dominated the American economic scene

Between the Reagan and Clinton administrations (1980 to 1998), Latin America’s average per capita income did not increase at all. 

 

Looking at Latin America’s poverty from the 1960s on evinces something more: about 10% of the region’s denizens were destitute by today’s subsistence standards of less than 2$ a day; however, by 1996, a third of Latin America was poor by the same standards. After just two decades of changes in international trade, ownership and sundry laws, 165 million Latin Americans were impoverished. Unfortunately, by 2005, regional poverty had increased from its 1996 levels, numbering 220 million poor. http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/09/12/latin-america-and-the-us-techno-empire/