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Uruguay's president José Mujica: no palace, no motorcade, no frills

theguardian.com

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Re: Uruguay's president José Mujica: no palace, no motorcade, no frills

#101

Post by Tomis02 »

iterationx wrote: post #68
ilamont wrote: post #7

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 m…

Minute 7:42 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cn9t0m6eG4Q

That was absolutely horrible. Could not watch more than a couple of minutes.

Re: Uruguay's president José Mujica: no palace, no motorcade, no frills

#102

Post by ggambetta »

grecy wrote: post #3
xweb wrote: post #2

Immediately searched for "moving to Uruguay" after reading this. The thought of a sane politician is so refreshing.

It's very beautiful, and people are extremely friendly and happy. I highly recommend a visit, if nothing else.

"Visit and nothing else" is a great idea. Living there isn't.

Re: Uruguay's president José Mujica: no palace, no motorcade, no frills

#103

Post by ggambetta »

dep_b wrote: post #50

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. But stop the worshipping please.

No, he isn't. The country has gone to shit under his "leadership": https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6886261

Re: Uruguay's president José Mujica: no palace, no motorcade, no frills

#104

Post by alan_cx »

vasilipupkin wrote: post #90
smtddr wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> Probably propaganda from the rich to keep their privileges. Not probably. It's exactly that.

Not at all - a "socialist" system involves doubling taxes On the middle class - that's really tough to sell to....the middle class, shockingly

1) Are US taxes half EU taxes then?

2) "Middle class", do you mean working classes?

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.

Re: Uruguay's president José Mujica: no palace, no motorcade, no frills

#105

Post by mseebach »

skrebbel wrote: post #84

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 sho…

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.

Re: Uruguay's president José Mujica: no palace, no motorcade, no frills

#106

Post by geekymartian »

Uruguayan here.

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.

my 2 cents

Re: Uruguay's president José Mujica: no palace, no motorcade, no frills

#107

Post by dep_b »

ggambetta wrote: post #103
dep_b wrote: post #50

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. But stop the worshipping please.

No, he isn't. The country has gone to shit under his "leadership": https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6886261

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.

Re: Uruguay's president José Mujica: no palace, no motorcade, no frills

#108

Post by abrahamsen »

bpodgursky wrote: post #11

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.

The Oklahoma Governor's Mansion, if anyone else is curious: http://www.ok.gov/governor/Mansion.html

Re: Uruguay's president José Mujica: no palace, no motorcade, no frills

#109

Post by scottlilly »

patrickg_zill wrote: post #65
xweb wrote: post #43

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 th…

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.

Re: Uruguay's president José Mujica: no palace, no motorcade, no frills

#110

Post by imd23 »

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.

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