Talk:Washington Consensus

Latin America section
An edit with information provided by academic sources was labeled as WP:SYNTH. This is not the case and the former edit appears to be WP:PUFF regarding the presidency of Carlos Andrés Pérez. WMrapids (talk) 17:59, 3 June 2023 (UTC)
 * Your last changes remove information that is important to understand the context of Venezuela and the Caracazo (in other words, the background where these policies took place):


 * Venezuela's international reserves were only US$300 million at the time of Pérez' election into the presidency
 * The increase was supposed to be implemented on 1 March 1989, but bus drivers decided to apply the price rise on 27 February, a day before payday in Venezuela
 * Lack of timely intervention by authorities, as the Caracas Metropolitan Police was on a labour strike
 * The privatization ended Venezuela's monopoly over telecommunications and surpassed even the most optimistc predictions, with over US$1,000 million above the base price and US$500 million more than the bid offered by the competition group
 * By the end of the year, inflation had dropped to 31%, Venezuela's international reserves were now worth US$14,000 million and there was an economic growth of 9% (called as an "Asian growth"), the largest in Latin America at the time.


 * It should be interesting to know about more the content that is perceived to be WP:PUFF, as most of this content is related to the situation in the country and the impact of the policies, instead of Carlos Andrés per se. Ironically, one of the popular terms to refer to his policies group, "The Economic Package", which carries a strong and negative connotation, was also removed. The current version states all of the negative effects of the reforms, including the Caracazo, as well as those regarded as the positive ones.


 * The main problem with the contributions is the use only of single academic papers, instead of bibliographical sources or news reports, which usually does not represent a general or common point of view, which bring due weight concerns- Not only that, but taking a look at the sources I can also see neutrality and verifiability problems. With the former, for instance, Carlos Andrés Pérez's cabinet is compared to Pinochet's Chicago Boys, and with the latter, at some point it is stated that during the Caracazo Hugo Chávez Frías was one of the few disobedient officers who firmly ejected to take part in the repression, when Chávez actually was bedridden with smallpox at the time (funnily enough, the author quotes himself for this claim). One of this issues actually affects the article, with one of the last changes: Powerful business groups and US-educated economists would persuade Pérez to liberalize the economy. Not only is this loaded language, but contradicts the experience and testimonies from his ministers, who actually adviced Pérez with a gradual approach instead of a shock terapy, and the common knowledge that one of Pérez's key flaws was his terrible political communication. This can be seen from the documentary Cap 2 Intentos, from historian and filmmaker Carlos Oteyza, to scholar Mirtha Rivero, who is already quoted in the article. Regarding the WP:SYNTH issue, one of the statements said that Economic nationalism and clientelism was prominent in Venezuela as a result of the two-party hegemonic system established by the Puntofijo Pact. None of this is mentioned later in the section and is unclear how it is related to the content at hands, besides also having loaded language.


 * Speaking of which, I also wanted to ask: the recent changes say that corruption increased in Venezuela as a result of Pérez's policies. How is this stated in the sources? I did not find it in any of them, and I find it really interesting because, arguably, the worst corruption scandals before the Bolivarian Revolution also happened before El Gran Viraje: the Sierra Nevada affair, the Jeeps scandal, and most famously, RECADI, which brought inmense fraud to the financial system and it was a currency control program, the very opposite of what the Washington Consensus is! Moreover, they also hold responsible the reforms of the 1994 banking crisis, where other authors would point out the important state intervention in the preceding years, which caused fiscal deficit and debt, and point out to several previous bank failures in the years before: Banco de los Trabajadores in 1982, Banco de Comercio in 1985 and Banco Nacional de Descuento in 1986.


 * I could provide references for the last arguments, but for the time being I want them to be examples on how the last changes can be problematic. Per WP:BRD, as the proponent of the changes, the onus is on you to prove why these changes are adequate. I'm all ears regarding the thoughts on this insight. Regards, --NoonIcarus (talk) 21:52, 3 June 2023 (UTC)