Katie Beeler-Our Brand is Crisis

The movie Our Brand Is Crisis made the situation in Bolivia a considerably hard situation for outsiders to determine what is best for the country. There are so many different group of people that can not possible be represented by one person fighting for representation. The most evident part of the film that showed this was when the president of the country won the election just be obtaining over 20% of the vote. Anyone of the candidates that had been elected would have a had the mass majority against them at the start of their presidency and more than likely failed as well.
In part two of John Perkins’ Confessions of an Economic Hitman the author discusses the situation in Equador and the large divide of wealth and social power in the country. The indigenous populations are not represented by the minority of the population which rules the country. They are out numbered by this as well as foreign aid and investment which have invested in the rain forests and their oil production. The indigenous population was preparing to fight a better trained army that was also equip with the power of US forces on their side because of their investments in the oil production.
This is similar to the Our Brand in Crisis in the sense that the former Bolivian President Goni tried to implement the US economic and social polices in a country that can not be represented currently by one President. The problems seem to lie in the divides of the indigenous and wealthy populations which have different economic policies that they would like to be implemented. The main concern it seemed in the film was jobs. There were too many jobs that were seen from foreign investors which came in and took over jobs and gave them to their own countries.
Clearly in one of the poorest countries in South America the idea that even more job opportunities have been taken away is not going to go over well. Even with the good intentions that Goni and others had tried to implement to bring jobs seem like a lose - lose situation. The indigenous population seeks to gain jobs by contributing to the distribution of cocaine while the wealthy population seeks to invest in foreign oil. The problem geographically leaves Bolivia land locked without ports so they are unable to transport goods without a third party allowing them to use their ports.
In James Cypher’s writing “The Slow Death of the Washington Consensus on Latin America” he says that “Latin America engaged in an indiscriminate opening in foreign capital, thus permitting its patter of national economic development to become hostage to the volatile and perverse whims of global financial markets.” Latin America is controlled by the foreign investment it receives from other nations. It will be impossible to Bolivia to control its own economy until it is in control of its own national resources. And in that respect, no president will ever be able to satisfy its people because jobs will be unable to come to the people that can be furnished by Bolivia rather than foreign investment.