Desperate times in the Calchaquí Valley

[Bill Bonner’s Diary]( Desperate Times in the Calchaquí Valley By Bill Bonner Friday, February 26, 2021 [Bill Bonner] EN ROUTE TO DUBLIN, IRELAND – “Desperate!” This was the word we got from the Calchaquí Valley. As regular Diary readers know, we were pinned down (delightfully) at our ranch in Argentina for nine months last year. We arrived in Buenos Aires on March 13. The next day, the airports were closed. This turned out to be a lucky break for us. We were like happy castaways enjoying our desert island. We rode our horses in the sunshine. We laughed every day. At day’s end, we drank wine from our vineyard and ate beef from our cows. Useless Lockdowns The lockdowns, however, did nothing to stop the coronavirus. Even with the most severe “lockdown” in the world – with police roadblocks every few miles… businesses closed… almost everyone forced to stay home… …Argentina still suffered 116 deaths per 100,000 people, not substantially less than Sweden (125), which did almost nothing to prevent the spread of the dreaded plague… …and many times the death rate in Nicaragua, which claims fewer than 3 coronavirus deaths per 100,000 people. Finally, the gauchos eased up enough so that we were able to get a flight out in November… Recommended Link [What’s Going On?]( [ad_img]( Former President Trump… Tech moguls like Zuckerberg… Gates… Musk… High-profile politicians and executives… Barack Obama among them… Even pop celebrities like Kim Kardashian… They’re ALL securing the most bizarre… remote… “offshore” properties you can imagine. To learn the concerning reason they might be doing this–and what it means for you… [Click here]( Plan B But what has happened at the ranch since? Our Argentinian lawyer brought us up to date. “It had better rain soon… even just a little. The situation is critical. Not a drop of water is coming in to irrigate the vineyards. And the cattle are getting dangerously thin.” Each year, we face a calamity. An extinction event for life at the ranch. It never rains there between March and December. By the end of the year, the land is parched. The cattle are dangerously thin. And fuses are short. In a good year, we get 130 mm of rain – about 5 inches. So far this year, we have gotten only 1 inch. Without more, the grapes will dry up. And the cattle will starve. But what about down along the river? Are we still able to irrigate the alfalfa, which is the cattle’s staple diet? Remember, our [Plan B]( was to get some land down in the valley, along the river. Even in a dry year, we’d be able to draw on the waters of the Calchaquí River to irrigate the alfalfa. Then, to avert disaster, we could drive the cattle up over the pass and down into the valley, where they would eat the round bales of alfalfa we had stocked for them. [Featured: Where America Goes From Here (It’s a Nightmare)]( Plan C Alas, it looks like we may need a Plan C. This looks like an especially bad drought… There is scarcely any water in the Calchaquí River, either. And everybody, up and down the valley, needs it. “We’ve already lost one cut of alfalfa (we usually get four per year). And if it doesn’t rain, we may not get another one. The situation is desperate,” our lawyer reported. Recommended Link [Check Your Cell Phone ASAP]( [image]( Blindsided: Why 205 Million Americans Just Got This Nasty Update on Their Phones Smartphones carried by 205 million Americans have recently been automatically updated with a feature that would make most Americans uncomfortable. Your smartphone probably already has the feature, and if you knew what this update did, you might be furious. [Click here to see why…]( -- Violent Outbreak Meanwhile, the war with the originarios continues (catch up on the latest [here]( and [here](. For newer readers, the originarios are people who claim to be the descendants of long-lost (or made up) tribes. They are trying to lay claim to our land, saying it was taken from their ancestors centuries ago. Our lawyer met with them again and tried to explain that the laws of the country had not changed. Private property is still private property. We are still the owners of the ranch, and we will do all we can, short of violence, to protect our property rights. As of last week, it was still tranquilo on the ranch. But farther up the valley, violence has broken out. The national newspaper, Clarín, reported that originarios had seized a property, claiming it as an ancestral property of the “Diaguita community.” The owner went to court. Finally, the cops arrived to throw the originarios off the property. What followed, predictably, was a violent confrontation. [image]Violence breaks out in the valley [Source: Clarín] Clarín points out that the “Diaguita” is an “ethnicity created in the city of Buenos Aires.” That is, it is made up… invented by politicians and opportunists. The paper goes on to explain that historians all agree that there never was a “Diaguita” tribe… and that the people claiming to be members of the “community” are no different – neither culturally nor racially – from any others in the valley. “They sow resentment,” explained a local priest – in a phrase that could explain many of America’s “culture wars,” too – “to harvest power.” [Featured: Hidden Time Bomb in Your Brokerage Account?]( Imposters Historians believe that the term “Diaguita” was one used by the Inca as a derogatory tag for all the tribes in the area. After the Inca were beaten by the Spanish, the real tribes of the area were moved out. The valley was de-populated. This left a need for labor, a need which was filled in the 19th and 20th centuries, largely by immigrants from Chile. Almost all the “originals” on our ranch, for example, came from neighboring farms within the last three generations. As for the reborn Diaguitas, they are imposters. The chief of the new tribe is named Miguel Plaza Schaefer. If Schaefer doesn’t sound particularly “Indian” to you, it’s because Miguel’s mother’s family came from Germany (in Spanish-speaking countries, the last name is the mother’s family name). He is just as much a member of some long-forgotten Teuton tribe as a member of a South American tribe that never existed. Not surprisingly, he is also on the government payroll… twice – one job is with the province and another paycheck comes from the central government. Recommended Link [Buy This Ticker Now: Projected To Jump 1,530%]( [ad_img]( With experts projecting gains as high as 1,530% by the end of this year… If you don’t buy this ticker, you’ll regret it later. Forbes has already confirmed that when all is said and done, “a new class of millionaires may emerge.” [Click here and get the ticker now… no strings attached]( Fake Promises Our ranch also has a local “chief.” He, too, is on the government payroll. And in his spare time, he encourages the locals to seize our land. This guy has no connection with the locals at all… except claiming to be their chief. He was born in a neighboring province and raised in Bolivia. But the fake chief of the fake tribe plays basically the same cards as America’s Treasury Secretary, Janet Yellen. That is, he promises to give something that doesn’t belong to him to people who have no right to it. Or, as Clarín puts it, “He promises to give land to those who follow him.” Alas… it is our land he is promising… Stay tuned… Regards, [signature] Bill --------------------------------------------------------------- Like what you’re reading? Send your thoughts to [feedback@rogueeconomics.com](mailto:feedback@rogueeconomics.com?subject=Desperate times in the Calchaquí Valley). --------------------------------------------------------------- FEATURED READS [The Reason Why Gold Could Break $2,000 an Ounce This Year]( the aftermath of the U.S. federal government’s COVID-19 stimulus measures, economic worries abound. One specific concern could yield growth for the price of gold in 2021… [How Bond Yields Point to Changing Interest Rates]( Economics colleague Tom Dyson is, like Bill, worried about real interest rates in the face of massive government stimulus. He is keeping an eye on metrics that could preclude huge changes, one of which is bond yields. [Click here]( to learn more… MAILBAG Dear readers talk China today… We entered China in the 1980s, following a large American soft-drink company just entering China. At that time, their bottling soft-drink industry consisted of two guys, one pouring a mix down a Teflon tube to a vat below. China was and is organized, disciplined, and they are strategic thinkers. They know what and where they want to go. We should never have signed away our technological knowledge just to enter China. Now, fast forward to the “60 Minutes” documentary of several years ago. This documentary showed miles and miles of empty buildings. Why? The Chinese central planners must have ordered and sponsored their being built. So what happened? Chinese citizens were speculating in buying real estate developed by the government that no one could afford, that kept going up artificially. A year or two later, we had dinner with Chinese industrialists who owned 250 Chinese restaurants in China with friends of ours. They had large paper sacks filled with jewelry they had bought at great prices in the U.S. Why? They were giving up speculating in the real estate market. So citizens in both the U.S. and China are trying to sidestep their governments. No one really knows what is happening in China. It is a closed society but I always wondered what would happen to all of those empty buildings – as far as the eye could see. Does anyone know? – Carol S. I think you are all missing the point. China sent COVID-19 around the world. Did you not see the doctors from China tell the world this? Those brave men are dead. They gave up their lives to get this message out. And you don’t believe they want world dominance? Wake up, world. – Eileen W. Does the world need to “wake up” to China, as Eileen believes? Or does the U.S. have more important issues to focus on? Write us at [feedback@rogueeconomics.com](mailto:feedback@rogueeconomics.com?subject=Desperate times in the Calchaquí Valley). 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