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Strong Like a Tank. Aside from Brazil, which boasts an impressive home-grown Detroit, most Latin American countries must import cars entire or most of the parts. Over the decades, to save their dollar supply, they have clamped such stiff import restrictions and duties on cars that only big companies, big bureaucrats and big spenders can afford new ones. Result: autos, like antiques, go from hand to hand, losing little in value as they grow older...
Argentina has the stiffest import duties (a 1960 Chevrolet Bel Air costs $21,691) and an average auto age of 20. It is probably the only nation in the world which had more cars per capita in 1928 than it does now. Many a Buenos Aires taxi is over 30. Taxis chug along, doors tied shut with string, bodies rocking precariously on chassis, drivers flailing their arms to compensate for 180° of steering-wheel play. In Chile, where the buyer of a $2,000 U.S. car must post an import-discouraging $20,000 bond for three months, some...
...Gasoline at the pump is fair game for a nation seeking revenue; out of the average price of 31? per gal. in the U.S., the consumer pays about 10? in taxes. Independents in the U.S. - which produces the world's most costly oil - pressured the Government to impose import quotas to protect them from cheaper foreign oil. Such regulatory groups as the Texas Railroad Commission make a concerted effort to prevent flooded markets by limiting production (a method that has prevented any real oil glut in the U.S.), thus in effect helping to keep up prices. The foreign...
Novacap had extraordinary powers, and Pinheiro used them. He floated bond issues, snagged a $10 million Export-Import Bank loan. He expropriated the 2,260 sq. mi. of the Brasilia federal district at $1 per acre, sold selected lots for $3 per square meter and up, a plan that will raise one-fifth of Brasilia's costs. He hired 1,500 contractors, flew in the first building materials at high cost. Through Kubitschek, Novacap raided departmental budgets. Checking the figures, newsmen have found at least $117 million of financing for Brasilia. It absorbed, for example, 95% of all hospital...
...June 1955 anti-Perón naval revolt, failed to stop the September revolution, which swept him and his boss out of power; of a heart attack; in Buenos Aires. Among Sosa Molina's rewards for carrying out Perón's dirty work: 265 car import licenses, each worth more than...