Please see earlier posts from:

Spain

Israel

The questions:

1. How are you feeling — optimistic, pessimistic — about business, the world, your country in general?

2. What is the world’s biggest challenge from here on out?

3. Anything that you think I need to know?

My amigo from Chile is a high level, seasoned software professional (with languages, children, and perspective) with English roots and sensibilities in this lovely country with its mountains and endless coastline.

Snow skiing on one side, surfing on the other.

He has been chafing under the pressure of COVID as he and his wife shelter in place in their condo in downtown Santiago and says he has all he needs whilst hoping for a quick recovery from the pandemic and the economy.

Work is down by half though he seizes the silver lining of being able to work on his own pet projects which makes him very happy.

While he is generally happy, he says he is “fed up with the friggin’ virus!” He is tired of the burden of masks, hand sanitizer, leaving shoes outside, changing clothes, and taking showers after every trip into the world.

He is pining for the smells of spring, summer (they have their seasons backward in the Southern Hemisphere, be warned), the sun, and the ability to see his fellow man in the street as anything other than a “probable virus vector.”

Our Chilean correspondent sees the world’s biggest challenge as being navigating a way out of the pandemic via massive testing and vaccine deployment, possibly embracing the military. He sees the massive US COVID funding as being a prelude to Universal Basic Income.

He cautions that the US alone cannot fend off both China and Putin while saying that Trump and Brexit may have been good for the United States and the United Kingdom, they were bad for the world writ large. He cautions that the UK was the US’s connection to the EU. Haha. Get it? Very astute comment.

He is also cautious about the erosion of personal freedoms as part of the COVID cure and fears governments may try to retain that sort of control over the citizenry.

As to l’affaire Trump, he feels like an “interminable soap opera just ended” and admits that “the attention whore had mine” but no more. He also thinks the sequel may happen.

The conduct of the Big Tech in “deplatforming” Trump is a “scandal” and that the impeachment trial is a “waste of energy.” He sees it as an attempt to “finish” Trump and to dampen his 2024 aspirations.

He says the Dems would be better served by thinking about the root causes of Trump’s ascension to the throne in 2016 and to stop giving him free publicity.

My Chilean correspondent left us with a recipe for Chilean French Bread Rolls, which I pass along to you, dear readers.

Chilean French Bread Rolls

So, dear reader, there you have it, a well-reasoned view from Santiago, Chile. Thanks, amigo.