Latitude 9n Blogging Will Be Light This Week And There's A Reason

Latitude 9n's blog entrees will be light this week. But you can think of it as delayed gratification. Hector Arocha is deeply engaged in research on technology innovation in Latin America. We are looking forward to his output which we hope to see beginning next week.

Boyd Ingalls is also being productive offline on another project which will benefit Latitude directly and more on that later.

In the mean time I want to direct attention to the policy journal Americas Quarterly which has a a marvelous online presence. A product of the Americas Society and Council of the Americas, AQ covers a broad range of policy issues, some National Geographic level travel and destination coverage, and some photographic eye candy. The result is good Americas boosting source of information as well as a fun read. Like any NGO publication AQ isn't entirely neutral though it seems to truly try. In Latin American politics that will ruffle some feathers. Personally, I make it a policy to be hard to offend, but being an outside observer undoubtedly makes that project easier.

The latest edition of AQ that I can find is Spring 2015. And as it happens, it has some great coverage of the Latin American emerging technology scene. I urge readers to check it out.

What We're Reading This Week - July 31, 2015

Senor Hector was reading about Latin American innovation this week. He contributed several links on that subject as well as links on a variety of topics.

But you knew this already: Andres Oppenheimer writes in el Nuevo Herald that Latin America is more creative than China or India. Es claro!

When it comes to urban planning and architecture Latin America is definitely taking some chances and innovating some new approaches. Justin McGuirk explores Latin America's new ideas for making urban areas work in Radical Cities: Across Latin America in Search of a New Architecture reviewed in The Guardian by Alexandra Lange

As Marcelo Guigale writes in the Financial Times, with the challenges facing Latin American exporters, they will have to be more creative in order to thrive going down the road.

Andres Oppenheimer also writes about Latin America's urgent need to be innovate here in the Miami Herald.

China is on everyone's mind this week. La Estrella De Panama has an article on how the slowing Chinese economy is effecting Panama and it's canal.

The BBC Mexico bureau expresses their concern regarding Chinese investment in Latin America here.

On the brighter side Chilean wines are well loved and there are a lot of different varieties available these days. El Tiempo has something to say about the export of Chilean cheer.

In Venezuela contraceptives are in very short supply. This is not good. Read about it in El Nacional

On the policy wonk side Juan Francisco Salazar writes on Latin America's changing vision of it's future in The Conversation

Policy is playing out on the street level in Bogota where taxi drivers are protesting competition from Uber. El Pais has a story on the action.

The Economist has a story low cost private schools in poor countries and another on the early stages of the Argentine presidential race.

Chinese Colonialism Makes Americans and Europeans Nervous.

Clifford Krause and Keith Bradsher have an excellent New York Times piece on China’s involvement in Ecuador. It’s a high level account of the impacts on Ecuador’s economy, politics, and ordinary people, of China’s $ megabillion investment in a country that struggles to keep up with almost everything, from infrastructure, to public service, to debt repayment. It’s hard for an American not to come away with a combined feeling of jealousy that China got it’s foot in the door in our hemisphere, nervousness that they’ll make a total mess of it, and schadenfreude that they’ll never recoup their investment. All these feelings amount to megahypocrisy.  China is bumbling through a neocolonialist project that looks a lot like the sort of adventures the United States and Europe launched over the last 150 to 200 years. China has stepped in where the Northern contingent has retreated. That doesn’t make us heroes. 

China is an equal opportunity colonialist. Their involvement in Africa is extensive as is their portfolio of investments in Latin America. China is willing to leverage weak regimes to invest in marginal economies. Just for starters, economist Ricardo Hausman has had a lot to say about China and Venezuela over the last couple years. You can find him quoted in any number of Financial Times articles on the subject such as here, or here, or his own column, here. I think it’s safe to say he’s not a China fan. 

But, of course, this is just scratching the surface of a very big problem. And I’m not just thinking of China. The colonial project is something as close to pure exploitation as we have in our world. It is a collaboration between strong powers and weak powers that de-powers ordinary people.

I believe there is a way to push power and resources out to the people on the street, or in the fields, or in the mines. I believe every one will be better off when we find that way.

What We're Reading This Week

Alma Guillermoprieto writes in The New York Review of Books on why the escape of El Chapo Guzman is such a blow to the Mexican government and so disheartening to Mexico's people.

 Manuel F. Cachan in The Harvard Crimson, "Don't Call Me Latino," on the benefits of divisions among Latin Americans.

Nikhil Kumar writes in The Brown Political Review on Latin America coming to grips with Feminism.

Michael Boskin in The Guardian on why Chili moves ahead and Argentina does not.

Michael Smith in Bloomberg News on why Argentina is so comfortable not paying its debt.

Bello writes in The Economist on Latin America's aging leaders

Latitude 9n is proud to welcome Hector J. Arocha, our new Editor in Chief of Spanish Language Content.

Hector, born in Venezuela, is a Latin American by birth, and as Hector says, by soul. His Curriculum Vitae spans International Finance and Accounting for global firms and includes a teaching post at Washington University in Saint Louis Missouri. An avid learner, his curiosity has led him to international travel, the US Congress, a latin band where he danced and sang in the Yoruba language, radio broadcasting and acting in live theater.

A person with deep convictions, an explorer of different religions and spiritual movements, a world music enthusiast, a lover of astrophysics, an avid researcher and seeker of truth, one thing is for sure: There will not be a dull moment for this caballero, or for Latitude9n’s readers.

Welcome Hector!

Latitude 9n le da la bienvenida con orgullo a Hector J. Arocha, nuestro nuevo Editor en Jefe del contenido en español.

Hector, oriundo de Venezuela, es LatinoAmericano de nacimiento y de alma, como expresa el mismo.

Su Curriculum vitae abarca Finanzas y Contabilidad Internacional para empresas globales. También incluye enseñanza de estas materias en 

Webster University, en la ciudad de St. Louis, Missouri. Formado como un ávido lector, su curiosidad lo ha llevado a diferentes partes del mundo,

al Congreso de los EE UU como invitado de un senador; a cantar musica Yoruba de una banda de musica Caribena, a la radio, a la radio y a la television

en programas socio-educativos; culturales y de entretenimiento.

Un hombre de profundas convicciones, explorador de diferentes religiones y movimientos espirituales, un fanático de la música del mundo, amante de la

astrofísica, un investigador tenaz y buscador de la verdad; una cosa es segura: Con este caballero no habra ninguna momento de monotonía para los lectores de Latitude 9n!

Bienvenido Hector!

Coding Latin American Innovation

The June 27 issue of The Economist has  a feature article on Latin American stagnation. The article contains few surprises: inefficient micro businesses, substandard infrastructure, business strangling bureaucracies, poor quality education, and on down the list. A list which has become canonical. The writer cites an inability to innovate as a critical failure for Latin Americans.
As an example of inefficiency the author calls out a family business centered around prewar knitting machines. I have enough familiarity with aging machinery to attest to the fact that keeping it running without the benefit of new parts is an exercise in innovation. When you have communities coping with aging capital, inadequate infrastructure, and monster bureaucracies, innovation becomes a survival skill of the first order. At a subsistence level brilliant innovation may be required just to keep from slipping back. Getting ahead may not be an option.
How to tap the same innovative energy that finds ways to repair old machinery, to get around town without effective infrastructure, or to find ways around strangling bureaucracies and turn it into a growth engine?
I have a friend who is a successful serial entrepreneur. During the dark days of the recent recession whenever I would write to him about a friend who was out of work or unable to progress in their career he would respond with the same three words, "Learn to code." Those words turn out to have been some solid advice as wages for coders of in demand languages are rising in the double digits per annum. No wage stagnation here.
At first glance teaching Latin Americans to code as a solution might seem naive. A few years ago it probably was. But the world is changing at the speed of bits and bytes. Type "learn to code (language of your choosing) for free" into your browser. In English the barrier to learning to code is mostly a willingness to put out the effort and access to a computer. Spanish language training could be built out if it doesn't exist already.
Of course not everyone in Latin America can learn to code, nor should they. But they don't need to. My wealth begets my spending begets someone else's wealth. Let some of the innovators learn to code and other innovators will find ways to build the business that use their code or serve the growing middle class.

Watch This Space

Latitude 9N has been on hiatus while I skill up. CFA level I is now in the rear view mirror. The Level II exam is almost upon us. At the same time I've been pursuing data analysis and modeling techniques. I will be back soon and we will  have even more fun exploring the world of Latin American business, culture, and politics.