Recent comments by Jose Luis Gambande

• The Roots of Resource Nationalism

  Completely agree. One more thing: don't forget that most of state-driven economies today are mounted on past private investments in infraestructure and other, made at risk by private sector when states were broken and asked for help.

• In a Democracy, We Deserve the Leaders We Elect

  Totally agree, good article.
  But think for a moment: Americans are lucky. After unpresentable characters as Bush they can generate a world-class leader like Obama.
  Look around you. Besides Merkel, where is another world class leader? Cameron? Berlusconi??? Rajoy? Putin? Hollande?

• Oil, Keynes, and Argentine history

  As a review, more than six months after this article, oil politics in Argentina does not seem to have worked. The company YPF fails to close any deals with investors and the future looks complicated. It was easy to foresee: breaking the rules creates legal instability that scares investors.

• America’s Global Election

  After reading this I was tempted to questioning because the feeling that I was reading a piece of political advertising and not a dispassionate analysis of the future consequences of the U.S. election.
  
  To begin let me clarify two things: first, nobody can doubt even one minute on the professional qualifications of Mr. Stiglitz, impressive qualifications and brilliance; second, I am not sympathetic to Republicans and feel much closer to Obama than Romney. If I were an American citizen probably vote for the current president, but does not mean we get carried away by emotions in what should be a cold analysis of the situation.
  
  Mr. Stiglitz associated Ronald Reagan deregulation policies with the seeds of the 2008 financial crisis. This may be fine as a campaign slogan, but is overkill on the historical point of view. In the thirty years between Reagan reforms and the 2008 financial crisis many Democrat administrations could have detected the germ and cure the disease. And they did not.
  
  It seems that toxic mortgages and Mr. Summers's 1998 opposition to regulating financial derivatives and their support for the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act have nothing to do with the crisis. Mr. Summers was Treasury Secretary under President Clinton and Director of National Economic Council under President Obama. In any case, financial markets deregulation fans seem to be on both sides, not just Romney.
  
  It's easy to endorse Mr. Stiglitz's arguments about the dire armament policies of President Bush and his unjustified and unsuccessful wars, and his favoritism with the military-industrial complex. Everybody agree with the American failure to impose democracy in countries where they deposed dictators. But it seems too light to assume without further argument that Mr. Romney will follow the same paths. Mr. Stiglitz knows that President Bush inherited a country with a surplus in its public accounts after the successful Clinton Presidency, which made it easy to engage in military adventures as world police officer. Today, the U.S. fiscal situation is differentand its precariousness, while acknowledged by Mr. Stiglitz, would prevent any attempt to re-engage in wars, even for something as necessary as oil. Even if wanted to, a Republican president would not embark on such adventures.
  
  Accusing Mr. Romney for using tax havens to put their money, is an argument for a campaign speech. Mr. Stiglitz must remember that what is not prohibited by law is allowed, and can not be an argument for voting against a candidate. It is in this kind of arguments that I would notice an "excessive enthusiasm" in the article in favor of Democrats, closer to the visceral rejection by Republicans than to the cold analysis of a great academic.
  
  Finally, replacement of the armamentistic race that Bush has done, and provoked so much damage to the world, by selective drone attacks that kill innocent and suspected terrorists, which are not accountable for being covert, does not seem to be a change politics in the sense of the search for global consensus and peaceful solutions to regional conflicts involving U.S.
  
  This demonization of candidate Romney appears to come from the stomach, not the brain. By contrast, it seems that in the administration of President Obama all the news are good, and that is not true in the last four years. The broken promises of candidate Obama on immigration reform, which extend an internal conflict that has become chronic, is one of them. The closure ofGuantanamo prison, with all that implies of illegality and human rights violation, is another. Seek for political consensus has not been a key element in his Presidency, as promised. Hope we all feel when it opened its mandate traveling to Egypt to show that was a different President, is gone for the sake of pragmatism in relations with Israel.
  
  As Mr. Stiglitz said, future affected by the election of U.S. President cannot say a word or influence the outcome. However, we care what happens because we know it will affect us. The vision and the arguments of the article seem destined to make us believe that the "demon" of Romney opposes to the "angel" of Obama. My opinion is much less optimistic. I think Obama will win the election, but his political future actions will be much closer to Romney ideas than to his promises of 2008 campaign.