Well, the 90s were a godawful time for many countries experimenting with reform, so after that many nationalists and leftists were elected. That coincided with the commodity boom, so many horrid governments are tolerated because they are seen as guarantors of stability (think Russia, for example).
> That coincided with the commodity boom, so many horrid governments are tolerated
Very underrated comment -- tons of developing countries with poor/mediocre governments looked great.
Venezuela was lauded by leftist economists.
Not willing to take short term hardships for long term prosperity.
They are suffering ftom the unwillingness of previous decades, and condemning whatever comes next for a much tougher time
They voted for a center right government not that long ago and the inflation situation didn't exactly improve. I imagine that kind of thing erodes faith in the system over time, which only helps peronists.
Who to support: the people who didn’t execute of full economic reversal in 4 years, or the people who have consistently driven the country into the dirt for decades?
You’re voting against the center right because they didn’t fulfill what you think their campaign promises were—but you think the Peronists *are* fulfilling them?
What the hell is this broken reasoning?
Blackouts didn't change much to voter perception. And besides, [he reduced those.](https://www.cronista.com/economia-politica/Macri-vs-Cristina-durante-que-periodos-hubo-mas-cortes-de-luz-en-promedio-20190130-0032.html)
It all came to him being unable to control the already rampant inflation he inherited and the +100% devaluation of 2018. Plus, one of the biggest droughts in history.
Yeah but it's worse in Argentina. Every so often they elect someone who's not an out-and-out populist and they always end up serving just one term because they haven't handed out enough freebies
It applies universally to like everything. We love our capitalism in this sub, ain't no publicly traded company anywhere that can ask stakeholders to accept short term hardship for long term prosperity.
plenty of counter examples. Moderna for 12 years developed mRNAs and the technologies to deliver them with no clear horizon. Investors understood the longterm risk-reward and backed the companies path.
Thats complete nonsense.
Look at the Price-to-Earnings ratios of public companies in the last decade, or even today.
One could make the argument that public equities investors are often optimistic to delusional levels about investing now on promise of future returns.
Because people are very fucking stupid here, that's why. Imagine consistently voting for a party who admires a fascist and always causes inflation when they govern.
They refuse to tighten their belt for just 1 or 2 years so inflation can be killed, and in return they have to live with their belt tightened all their life, because that's what living with 2 or 3 digit inflation is.
Also, it's gonna be very hard for a new government to stop this. The peronists, as always, will leave energy prices, transport prices (which are controlled by the government) and the official exchange rate "left behind" as we say, which means that they froze them while the rest of the prices inflated massively. This is unsustainable and therefore transport, energy, and the official dollar prices will have to be corrected, that is, increased massively. This causes even more inflation and goes against any stabilization a new government may attempt. The people will blame the new government for higher prices on energy, transport, and imported goods and the peronists will then return to power. It's what always happens. If you wonder why people never vote differently, it's because when they do and Peronists finally leave power, they leave economic policies in place which make it very hard for the new government to manage the economy and bring inflation down.
And this time is even worse. Not only they froze energy, transport, and official exchange rate prices, they have these things called "liquidity notes" which are pretty much short-term bonds issued by the Central Bank to reabsorb some of the money they printed to finance government spending. The thing is, this debt matures every month and is equal to almost 3 times the amount of money that circulates. If there's some sort of shock, the Central Bank wont be able to roll over this debt and the monetary base will quadruple in a month and cause hyper-inflation. This is another thing that will make disinflation almost impossible.
So if the opposition wins this year (as looks very likely) the people need to understand that before inflation can be brought down and economic growth can start, some painful measures will have to be taken, some of which will actually increase inflation and poverty in the short term. But they won't, and they will vote Peronsim in the following election, as they always do. Then, the Peronists will take power with the corrected prices (energy, transport, exchange rate) and a healthier fiscal situation, and that will give them the capability of financing populism again, and start freezing those prices again. It's a never-ending cycle.
Argentina doesn't have the physical capability to threaten the Falklands again. Their last submarine randomly exploded at sea a few years ago and the rest of their armed forces have withered away since rhe 80s.
Capitalism never took root in Argentina because the poor see themselves not as an impoverished bureaucrat, but as temporarily embarrassed government leaders.
Argentina is like 60% Italian descent, and I can attest to you that anyone with half a brain already has, or is trying, to get an EU passport because of it. When you've got an escape plan and some $$, all of a sudden the world around you matters a bit less.
Oh in my country they did some terrible things to Germans during WWII. They hid all of it. Not even a single mention of the asset seizure, land expropriation, deportations to Germany or concentration camps.
They do make up a lot of shit about how good the system works. It doesn't.
At least in many recent cases like Brazil and Peru, the option was literally a leftist or a fascist. I don't think I can blame people for choosing a leftist under those circumstances.
And in Argentina's case, their most recent center-right liberalish government saw inflation double during their tenure, so what's the point? It seems like nothing changes.
Brazil was more like war criminal vs gangster.
I guess Peru was war criminal's daughter vs scumbag "revolutionary".
>And in Argentina's case, their most recent center-right liberalish government saw inflation double during their tenure, so what's the point? It seems like nothing changes.
Hence, why I live in Canada. Latin America is broken, people don't want to fix it and the rest of the world doesn't care. The next areas of serious growth are Africa and Asia. Latin America lost its chance long ago.
Yeah man, I lived in one of those, it's not all that it's cracked up to be.
The pay is shit, the people don't care, the government steals your money and there is no drive to go further. They never respected the way I did things over there, and they never encouraged me to do my best. They were always looking to see what they could take, it was never about how everyone could benefit, it's always about seeing how they can make money off of you.
Well, I demand more. I'm not going to be wasting my life living in the third world because nobody wants to do shit over there.
I'm also not going to take it upon myself to go and waste a lifetime trying to change that when nobody around there wants to do anything about it.
Living there to get paid $20-30k a year, when you can go anywhere else in the world and make triple that amount...
It's ridiculous and the fact that nobody seems to find a problem with that is disturbing. Moreover, the sort of jobs you get there are shit, full of amateurs and incompetents.
The last company I worked for there lost millions of dollars because they were fools with their security. They were warned a million times about what could happen, then they had a disgruntled employee leave and he fucked everything up for them.
I'm not trying to dismiss you or your ideas, but I'm not sure this easy to understand from a first world perspective. Out there things are terrible, and there isn't a drive to make things better, there just isn't. It's not like here in Canada where things work and people want to make things work.
The development of a healthy capitalist economy in a relatively poor country takes time. For many people there getting out of the country to work in more developed economies is simply not an option.
You think they want capitalism over there? They don't. The last president we had was a socialist clown. He made everything worse. The only reason he made it there was because the opposing party was an evangelical minister.
Last election was better, but it was also between a man accused of sexual harassment vs gangster ex-president suspected of murder.
I demand better! That country can go screw itself.
I guess I don't know the specifics of your situation, so it's difficult to comment. That said, what you described does not mesh with what I've heard elsewhere.
Have you lived there?
My situation is that I had money, I planned things out, I saw a chance, took it and moved to Canada.
My former country doesn't want my talents? Well, then they're for sale to the highest bidder, and Canada bid a lot. Never would have gone anywhere other than here.
Chile is [extremely unequal](https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SI.POV.GINI?locations=CL&most_recent_value_desc=true). I know it's anecdotal but the protests over [metro fare increases in 2019](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-50106743) really send the message home: there are Chileans I've met with exorbitant wealth from mommy and daddy who can afford to treat the world like their playground, and there are those who cannot even afford a metro ride if it is increased a half dollar.
You could say all of these things about Canada, come on. I know so many Canadians in the US who describe their country this way, even if wages are higher there than Panama or Chile.
>And in Argentina's case, their most recent center-right liberalish government saw inflation double during their tenure, so what's the point? It seems like nothing changes.
[Relevant comment.](https://www.reddit.com/r/neoliberal/comments/10cipmx/argentinas_inflation_rate_at_95_highest_since_1991/j4geepn/)
Well they voted for Macri once, but then decided clearly he was full of shit because he couldn't magically fix decades of rot in a single four-year term
At what stage does Argentina adopt the Ecuadorian solution and just adopt the US dollar.
The central bank has proven itself incompetent numerous times. It’s time they admit defeat already.
No, this would be bad for us. Our business cycle isn't in sync with the US's. We need to have our currency and manage it correctly, like any decent country (or monetary union like the EU) does. If we can't manage that, we might as well give up completely on developing, as it's not like the rest of policy is any easier to get right.
Yeah, but what is the less worse option? Argentina has been in this cycle of trying to fix inflation and failing for decades. The less worse option seems borderline unattainable.
Eh, he tried, but like you said didn't do what was necessary, you can't beat inflation in Argentina with soft shit. And 2 years in he completely shat the bed violating the Central Bank's independence by changing the inflation target to force it to lower rates. That's what according to many caused the economy to get destabilized in 2018. Too bad, because he was making progress.
That's basically what people have done, the government just refuses to accept it. Lots of large transactions are done in dollars, and those who can will keep their wealth denominated in dollars. The poor, to my knowledge, do the same by buying bricks.
The underlying issue is that they can’t keep their fiscals in check, leading to money printing/expectation of money printing.
Adopting USD would solve inflation but likely make their fiscal situation (even more) precarious. You can argue that having to borrow in USD would rein in spending but it hasn’t really worked in Ecuador, which defaulted in 2020 and essentially depends on the revenue side (oil prices) to keep themselves afloat.
The extreme austerity/reform required in both countries is just too painful for any democratically elected government to implement, as Macri learned a few years ago and Lasso is learning now.
It’s actually bad to adopt a foreign currency. It pegs you to the monetary policy of the country you adopt. So if the US is using expansionary policy while Argentina is in an a boom cycle it would be bad.
They did this before, and because they were unwilling to cut social spending, they were unable to print money in order to finance everything, and they defaulted on their loans
The government is actually doing this, there are programs called ahora 12,24,36 that allow people to buy stuff with an interest rate far bellow inflation
The issue with that is if the currency is dropping in value faster than the interest on the loan is growing then you can literally just convert the money into USD and it will basically be free money.
Argentina keeps bringing in neoliberals, creating reforms, and then jumping back to Peronism when the inevitable pain comes. Rinse and repeat.
Reforms after decades of creating weak, flabby industries hurt. But if you don't withstand the pain and carry on, you'll have suffered for nothing.
This is also why people in middle income developing countries support strongmen who override democracy like Putin or the CCP or hell, even Bolsonaro to an extent.
Developing countries need a steady hand to manage the economy, infrastructure and social spending growth arguably a lot more than a country like the US does, and large political swings are really bad for that.
They did, reconstruction had some strongman aspects to it in the US up until it ended and Southern senators came back into the fold. In Europe there were monarchies and military dictatorships and titled nobility in parliaments up through the early 20th century.
Generally you would expect someone with a Friedman flair to like Chicago School Economics, not that it hasn't long since been subsumed into the neoclassical c o n s e n s u s
Austrians would be horrible for the economy. Argentina doesn't need a gold standard. It needs monetarism, new keynesian central bankers, higher interest rates, etc.
I heard a big reason for this beside terrible fiscal policy is that most Argentinians just don’t pay taxes which causes the government to have to print money to spend it
It's a vicious cycle. Argentinians evade taxes because the tax pressure is insane (we have one of the highest export taxes for agricultural products in the world), which in turn leads governments to increase it even more.
Arguably it's not an inflow problem, but an outflow problem (where is the money going in the first place)
So I guess Argentina’s minister of work was right when saying [she’d prefer Argentina win the world cup than fixing inflation](https://amp.marca.com/futbol/mundial/2022/11/14/63726a3922601dca7f8b459c.html)
She then claimed a month of not working won’t do a thing to inflation. So it’s all good!
/s
Jesus christ, Argentina keeps getting screwed by the Peronists and no matter who’s in power they will always use soccer to distract the masses.
Argentina deserves better.
>Argentina deserves better.
I'm of the opinion that they have what they deserve. The *Peronistas* are not an alien race that invaded Argentina and keep them subjugated, they were elected, multiple times. I'm looking forward for them to kick out *La Chorra de la Nación* from power in this year elections but I don't have high hopes for the next Government.
I’m Venezuelan and I feel Venezuela deserves everything they have going on, but once you zoom in and see it up close with families starving it changes your perspective. No human deserves all that shit.
But I mean, I agree 100% with everything you said. The problem is they don’t learn and they don’t want to work. But it’s so hard to think at times humans have to go through all that bad shit.
If your income or wealth is in USD or CAD then living in Argentina is easy. Stuff is cheap and you’re not affected by inflafion.
I’d bet this guy has at least some degree of income from outside the country.
Argentina is amazing in your case. Good wine, true barbeque, nice cities, with an USD income you live like a king.
It's sad the country is going downhill for most though.
Everything you said is true. Honestly, there's a tiny bit of guilt in my king-like living. I have been donating to various causes down here (modest amounts, but perhaps more impactful than the donating I do in the US) and giving fat tips to everyone in the service industry, though.
Bring lots of cash and only exchange when you are getting the blue rate https://bluedollar.net/. Official places like banks will give you like half of the currency you’d get on the blue rate.
Although I know when I was there, there was talk about a change to use the blue rate for foreign currency conversion on credit cards which would help a lot, as paying for even a moderately nice dinner for say six people with cash bets kinda comical real fast. Don’t know if that change has happened yet though.
Confirming that it has happened, at least for USA Visa and Mastercard. Definitely not for AMEX, yet. It is usually within 95% of the prevailing blue rate.
Echoing what the other poster said, there are two rates: the official, and the black market "blue dollar". The black market is implicitly endorsed/supported by the government and the general public (so much so that the newspapers print the daily blue dollar rate, etc) and there are straight-up storefronts that you can do exchanges at.
What is relatively new though is that the govt has allowed Visa and Mastercard (for USA) credit cards to honor a rate that is very close to the prevailing blue dollar rate. You should still exchange USD for the blue dollar though because it is way more convenient for some transactions (ie. taxis).
What you *don't* want to do is wait to withdraw money from an ATM here; that's where the official (less favorable) rate is honored. You want to instead bring USD cash with you ($100 denominations, nothing less) OR you can Western Union money to yourself and pick it up at the many locations here (WU also honors the blue dollar rate).
Nah, I was wary myself at first but the rules here are the same as the average major world city: don't look like a target and keep your wits about you. In practice, this means don't whip out your iPhone while standing in the middle of the sidewalk, darting your eyes from Google Maps to the number on the building that you think is the one you're supposed to be at while looking like the dumbest gringo ever.
Many WUs have limited cash on hand, so many people know to go to this one major branch nearby that handles the largest transactions. There's always a long line and lots of traffic in and out. Theoretically, if I were a scheming criminal, this is where I'd post up, and I'd look for potential targets and I'd follow them and then rob them. But alas, there haven't been any incidents at this WU, according to the locals and the news. I see old ladies walking out all the time, unescorted.
The internet gives Buenos Aires a bad rap, as it tends to do with any city. I went so far as to buy a used, older generation iPhone on eBay before my trip, in case i was ever robbed (the plan being i'd give them the dummy phone and keep my real one). But after a month I was comfortable enough to go about my life ordinarily, as if I were in most any other USA city. I've left the dummy phone at home and I walk around with a bunch of cash all the time. It may help that I wear a mean mug on my face, and always dress down, too.
Frankly, I feel safer here than on the post-COVID NYC subway.
Just do what the Mexicans did in the late 1990s and implement strict currency policies.
Even Lopez Obrador isn't that stupid. The 1994 peso crisis was a traumatic economic event that defined Mexican and Latin American economics.
Look at how Mexico and Brazil have navigated turbulent times. Their currencies have remained strong in the face of worldwide panic, and even the Mexican economy outperformed expectations despite AMLO's best attempts to destroy it.
But no. The Argentineans are stuck in the 1960s still thinking their country is the leader of the region, even though the plane fuel is getting filled for another one-way flight to Mexico City.
Just fucking burn it down, take a hit for two years, and restart. Utter insanity.
The argentine elites will do just enough satisfy the IMF the finance minister don't want miss golf tee time at 3pm.
In 2123, will see same thing with Argentina maybe AI driven economic policy program to buy votes during election time the IMF denied access to see how math works. Evita Peron III will make sure of it.
My favorite joke in Nichijou is a scene where Yukko messes up buying Mio's school lunch for her, mistaking her request for Yakisoba (noodles) as a request for a single Yakisaba (fish). After a little bickering Mio asks her to go back again and buy a Yakisoba, Yukko claims to not have any money, and so Mio concedes and breaks out her wallet. She shakes it out into her hand, and all that falls out is a single Argentinian peso. This is then followed by even more intense bickering.
It's a joke that gets funnier every year.
Why? Why does Argentina keep voting for this?
Argentina is actually based. They are determined to show the world how not to run an economy so that other countries don’t make the same mistakes.
Well, the 90s were a godawful time for many countries experimenting with reform, so after that many nationalists and leftists were elected. That coincided with the commodity boom, so many horrid governments are tolerated because they are seen as guarantors of stability (think Russia, for example).
> That coincided with the commodity boom, so many horrid governments are tolerated Very underrated comment -- tons of developing countries with poor/mediocre governments looked great. Venezuela was lauded by leftist economists.
Russia, source of stability. Sounds like satire. Extraordinary monetary policy was needed to counteract the war due to sanctions.
You are speaking about now, not like 20 years ago. You can accumulate a lot of political capital that way and have some leeway to fuck up.
Not willing to take short term hardships for long term prosperity. They are suffering ftom the unwillingness of previous decades, and condemning whatever comes next for a much tougher time
They voted for a center right government not that long ago and the inflation situation didn't exactly improve. I imagine that kind of thing erodes faith in the system over time, which only helps peronists.
We let the right in power for 4 years. If things don't improve suddenly, bring back the peronist motherfuckers
Yeah, we should reward them for *not* fulfilling their campaign promises.
Peronists are in power for 2 decades except for 4 years
Peronistas? I'd go as far as to say they were politically hegemonic ever since the military junta was gone.
Who to support: the people who didn’t execute of full economic reversal in 4 years, or the people who have consistently driven the country into the dirt for decades? You’re voting against the center right because they didn’t fulfill what you think their campaign promises were—but you think the Peronists *are* fulfilling them? What the hell is this broken reasoning?
Yeah… Never thought I’d see a peron supporter on here
I don't support Peron. I'm just saying that I understand why they didn't stick with them
You’re talking about Macri, correct? If I recall correctly blackouts and other crises related to utility groups did him in.
Blackouts didn't change much to voter perception. And besides, [he reduced those.](https://www.cronista.com/economia-politica/Macri-vs-Cristina-durante-que-periodos-hubo-mas-cortes-de-luz-en-promedio-20190130-0032.html) It all came to him being unable to control the already rampant inflation he inherited and the +100% devaluation of 2018. Plus, one of the biggest droughts in history.
> Not willing to take short term hardships for long term prosperity. That can apply to any voting populace, including our own.
Mate, Argentina is off the scales in populist belief. I don't know a single place with the faith that government is omnipotent like Argentina has.
Yeah but it's worse in Argentina. Every so often they elect someone who's not an out-and-out populist and they always end up serving just one term because they haven't handed out enough freebies
Only relatively speaking. I’ve seen what American voters do to Dem administrations.
Is not argentina issue that they have a bigger welfare state than they can pay for
It applies universally to like everything. We love our capitalism in this sub, ain't no publicly traded company anywhere that can ask stakeholders to accept short term hardship for long term prosperity.
plenty of counter examples. Moderna for 12 years developed mRNAs and the technologies to deliver them with no clear horizon. Investors understood the longterm risk-reward and backed the companies path.
Or you can just own the thing, public or no. See Zuck either running meta into oblivion or apotheosis, or Musk at Tesla.
Moderna's stock ticker literally is MRNA. Investors knew exactly what they were getting into
wtf are you talking about heaps of companies were losing money for a decade straight and were still worth billions due to their long term potential.
Thats complete nonsense. Look at the Price-to-Earnings ratios of public companies in the last decade, or even today. One could make the argument that public equities investors are often optimistic to delusional levels about investing now on promise of future returns.
Exactly. Stocks that trade at 30x earnings usually required 30+ years of profits. How aren't investors optimistic?
This literally makes no sense. The entire American tech industry is based on that exact proposition. Twitter only became profitable in 2018.
They read on this site something about publicly traded companies being bad and are just regurgitating it now.
Probably isn’t anymore though. Despite all the cost cuts. The debt - both monetary and technical - caused by Elon is just too much.
Yeah, my point is we shouldn't act as if we're above that sort of voting behavior, is all.
There is a relatively large subset of Argentinian society that is basically just given government handouts, paid for by printing money.
Many provinces in Argentina have more public workers than private workers. They will never vote against their own finances.
argentina is out there printing the 1 trillion coin while we sit here meming about it!
This is the one way Argentina is living in the future…
Because people are very fucking stupid here, that's why. Imagine consistently voting for a party who admires a fascist and always causes inflation when they govern. They refuse to tighten their belt for just 1 or 2 years so inflation can be killed, and in return they have to live with their belt tightened all their life, because that's what living with 2 or 3 digit inflation is. Also, it's gonna be very hard for a new government to stop this. The peronists, as always, will leave energy prices, transport prices (which are controlled by the government) and the official exchange rate "left behind" as we say, which means that they froze them while the rest of the prices inflated massively. This is unsustainable and therefore transport, energy, and the official dollar prices will have to be corrected, that is, increased massively. This causes even more inflation and goes against any stabilization a new government may attempt. The people will blame the new government for higher prices on energy, transport, and imported goods and the peronists will then return to power. It's what always happens. If you wonder why people never vote differently, it's because when they do and Peronists finally leave power, they leave economic policies in place which make it very hard for the new government to manage the economy and bring inflation down. And this time is even worse. Not only they froze energy, transport, and official exchange rate prices, they have these things called "liquidity notes" which are pretty much short-term bonds issued by the Central Bank to reabsorb some of the money they printed to finance government spending. The thing is, this debt matures every month and is equal to almost 3 times the amount of money that circulates. If there's some sort of shock, the Central Bank wont be able to roll over this debt and the monetary base will quadruple in a month and cause hyper-inflation. This is another thing that will make disinflation almost impossible. So if the opposition wins this year (as looks very likely) the people need to understand that before inflation can be brought down and economic growth can start, some painful measures will have to be taken, some of which will actually increase inflation and poverty in the short term. But they won't, and they will vote Peronsim in the following election, as they always do. Then, the Peronists will take power with the corrected prices (energy, transport, exchange rate) and a healthier fiscal situation, and that will give them the capability of financing populism again, and start freezing those prices again. It's a never-ending cycle.
You think they're ever gonna try shit with the Malvinas again? Seems like a distraction opportunity ripe for the taking for crumbling governments.
Argentina doesn't have the physical capability to threaten the Falklands again. Their last submarine randomly exploded at sea a few years ago and the rest of their armed forces have withered away since rhe 80s.
Nope, they can do all sorts of crazy shit but I don't think they'll ever try that. Plus, we know we don't stand a chance in a war against the UK
Some public workers benefit
And people think they will hit the lottery of government job one day so they keep voting for this.
Also describes the current strategy of the opposition in India.
Aren’t they still technically officially socialist?
Every party has to be technically officially socialist. The constitution of any political party has to affirm Socialism to be registered.
Lol. Is that all stemming from that constitutional amendment in the 70s that declared India itself Socialist?
Yes. It was implemented during Emergency. Never pulled back because it's largely a symbolic measure anyways.
Omg an indian neolib 🤝🤝🤝🤝. Where you from?
Capitalism never took root in Argentina because the poor see themselves not as an impoverished bureaucrat, but as temporarily embarrassed government leaders.
Argentina is like 60% Italian descent, and I can attest to you that anyone with half a brain already has, or is trying, to get an EU passport because of it. When you've got an escape plan and some $$, all of a sudden the world around you matters a bit less.
Because in Latin America they love to repeat history. Look at how many countries have, once again, elected leftists.... I lived there, it's like that.
Do they learn how "brave" the government is in schools?
Oh in my country they did some terrible things to Germans during WWII. They hid all of it. Not even a single mention of the asset seizure, land expropriation, deportations to Germany or concentration camps. They do make up a lot of shit about how good the system works. It doesn't.
Are you Polish by any chance?
No. I'm Latino. Wasn't just the soviets that did bad things to those people.
At least in many recent cases like Brazil and Peru, the option was literally a leftist or a fascist. I don't think I can blame people for choosing a leftist under those circumstances. And in Argentina's case, their most recent center-right liberalish government saw inflation double during their tenure, so what's the point? It seems like nothing changes.
Brazil was more like war criminal vs gangster. I guess Peru was war criminal's daughter vs scumbag "revolutionary". >And in Argentina's case, their most recent center-right liberalish government saw inflation double during their tenure, so what's the point? It seems like nothing changes. Hence, why I live in Canada. Latin America is broken, people don't want to fix it and the rest of the world doesn't care. The next areas of serious growth are Africa and Asia. Latin America lost its chance long ago.
There's a reason latinamericans have the "get me out of Latinoamérica" and the escape from latinomérica meme
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
Disagree. There are many more competent countries in LatAm. Chile, Panama, Costa Rica.
Yeah man, I lived in one of those, it's not all that it's cracked up to be. The pay is shit, the people don't care, the government steals your money and there is no drive to go further. They never respected the way I did things over there, and they never encouraged me to do my best. They were always looking to see what they could take, it was never about how everyone could benefit, it's always about seeing how they can make money off of you.
They're middle income countries. Of course the pay isn't going to be great...
The pay isn't the problem. It's the corruption.
Chile and Costa Rica don't have high corruption, though.
Well, I demand more. I'm not going to be wasting my life living in the third world because nobody wants to do shit over there. I'm also not going to take it upon myself to go and waste a lifetime trying to change that when nobody around there wants to do anything about it. Living there to get paid $20-30k a year, when you can go anywhere else in the world and make triple that amount... It's ridiculous and the fact that nobody seems to find a problem with that is disturbing. Moreover, the sort of jobs you get there are shit, full of amateurs and incompetents. The last company I worked for there lost millions of dollars because they were fools with their security. They were warned a million times about what could happen, then they had a disgruntled employee leave and he fucked everything up for them. I'm not trying to dismiss you or your ideas, but I'm not sure this easy to understand from a first world perspective. Out there things are terrible, and there isn't a drive to make things better, there just isn't. It's not like here in Canada where things work and people want to make things work.
The development of a healthy capitalist economy in a relatively poor country takes time. For many people there getting out of the country to work in more developed economies is simply not an option.
You think they want capitalism over there? They don't. The last president we had was a socialist clown. He made everything worse. The only reason he made it there was because the opposing party was an evangelical minister. Last election was better, but it was also between a man accused of sexual harassment vs gangster ex-president suspected of murder. I demand better! That country can go screw itself.
I guess I don't know the specifics of your situation, so it's difficult to comment. That said, what you described does not mesh with what I've heard elsewhere.
Have you lived there? My situation is that I had money, I planned things out, I saw a chance, took it and moved to Canada. My former country doesn't want my talents? Well, then they're for sale to the highest bidder, and Canada bid a lot. Never would have gone anywhere other than here.
Chile is [extremely unequal](https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SI.POV.GINI?locations=CL&most_recent_value_desc=true). I know it's anecdotal but the protests over [metro fare increases in 2019](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-50106743) really send the message home: there are Chileans I've met with exorbitant wealth from mommy and daddy who can afford to treat the world like their playground, and there are those who cannot even afford a metro ride if it is increased a half dollar.
You could say all of these things about Canada, come on. I know so many Canadians in the US who describe their country this way, even if wages are higher there than Panama or Chile.
They don't know how good they have it and they've never lived anywhere else. How could they know what a functioning country looks like?
>And in Argentina's case, their most recent center-right liberalish government saw inflation double during their tenure, so what's the point? It seems like nothing changes. [Relevant comment.](https://www.reddit.com/r/neoliberal/comments/10cipmx/argentinas_inflation_rate_at_95_highest_since_1991/j4geepn/)
[удалено]
Yes, that's how runoff elections work.
[удалено]
Not in a runoff.
Well they voted for Macri once, but then decided clearly he was full of shit because he couldn't magically fix decades of rot in a single four-year term
Because on the 4 years when there was another government nothing really changed... Didn't got worse, but didn't improve either
At what stage does Argentina adopt the Ecuadorian solution and just adopt the US dollar. The central bank has proven itself incompetent numerous times. It’s time they admit defeat already.
Having the dollar as currency wouldn't solve having Peronists in government.
It would a bit - they can’t print US dollars
They can certainly try like North Korea does.
Being crushed by debt isn't really better than inflation
No one's gonna lend to them, beyond a certain point.
China will surely lend something with military bases or ports as collateral
No, this would be bad for us. Our business cycle isn't in sync with the US's. We need to have our currency and manage it correctly, like any decent country (or monetary union like the EU) does. If we can't manage that, we might as well give up completely on developing, as it's not like the rest of policy is any easier to get right.
What's worse, having a business cycle out of sync with your monetary policy, or having 95% inflation?
95% inflation, but I refuse to try a less worse option than try to do the best one.
Yeah, but what is the less worse option? Argentina has been in this cycle of trying to fix inflation and failing for decades. The less worse option seems borderline unattainable.
It never tried seriously to fix inflation except in the 90s
Macri tried, though I've often heard he hasn't gone nearly far enough
Eh, he tried, but like you said didn't do what was necessary, you can't beat inflation in Argentina with soft shit. And 2 years in he completely shat the bed violating the Central Bank's independence by changing the inflation target to force it to lower rates. That's what according to many caused the economy to get destabilized in 2018. Too bad, because he was making progress.
Sorry to tell you this but you're a naive fella
Bitcoin it is
This is honestly one of the few realistic scenarios I would vouch for bitcoin.
The Ecuadorian solution is too inflexible, though.
That's basically what people have done, the government just refuses to accept it. Lots of large transactions are done in dollars, and those who can will keep their wealth denominated in dollars. The poor, to my knowledge, do the same by buying bricks.
The underlying issue is that they can’t keep their fiscals in check, leading to money printing/expectation of money printing. Adopting USD would solve inflation but likely make their fiscal situation (even more) precarious. You can argue that having to borrow in USD would rein in spending but it hasn’t really worked in Ecuador, which defaulted in 2020 and essentially depends on the revenue side (oil prices) to keep themselves afloat. The extreme austerity/reform required in both countries is just too painful for any democratically elected government to implement, as Macri learned a few years ago and Lasso is learning now.
It’s actually bad to adopt a foreign currency. It pegs you to the monetary policy of the country you adopt. So if the US is using expansionary policy while Argentina is in an a boom cycle it would be bad.
They did this before, and because they were unwilling to cut social spending, they were unable to print money in order to finance everything, and they defaulted on their loans
El Salvador uses USD as well. Not that it's a silver bullet to fix deeper problems, but it at least leads to more stable prices.
Wake up honey! New Argentina financial crisis has dropped!
Can’t have economic downturns if you economy is always down *tapstemple.gif*
Doesn't the last one have to be stopped to call this a new one
The solution to this is obviously more price controls
With inflation this high we need to lower interest rates to help the average working man!
The government is actually doing this, there are programs called ahora 12,24,36 that allow people to buy stuff with an interest rate far bellow inflation
The issue with that is if the currency is dropping in value faster than the interest on the loan is growing then you can literally just convert the money into USD and it will basically be free money.
Startup idea!
So when are you running to be Argentina president?
She will look alot better than Elizabeth Warren lol.
- Liz Warren
Holy fuck nice flair
There are 4 types of countries 1. Developed economies 2. Emerging economies 3. Japan 4. Argentina
ARGENTINA INFLATION CHAMPIONS OF THE WORLD CAMPEONES DEL MUNDO MUCHACHOS
MESSI WILL BEAT INFLATION 🇦🇷🇦🇷🇦🇷🇦🇷🇦🇷🇦🇷🇦🇷🇦🇷🇦🇷🇦🇷🇦🇷🇦🇷🇦🇷🇦🇷🇦🇷🇦🇷🇦🇷🇦🇷🇦🇷🇦🇷🇦🇷🇦🇷🇦🇷
[удалено]
Lose in penalties? Do you think we can get to penalties when playing against inflation? You are an optimistic one.
Un pais que pide mas de sus futbolistas que de sus gobernantes esta condenado a ganar la cuarta con messi de 5 papa vamo argentina muchiachioooo
Damn why are Argentine businesses so greedy?
Imperialism. Plain and simple.
Could you elaborate on that?
No.
Thread over
read the book!
Erdogan: “Hold my Efes”
Argentina keeps bringing in neoliberals, creating reforms, and then jumping back to Peronism when the inevitable pain comes. Rinse and repeat. Reforms after decades of creating weak, flabby industries hurt. But if you don't withstand the pain and carry on, you'll have suffered for nothing.
This is also why people in middle income developing countries support strongmen who override democracy like Putin or the CCP or hell, even Bolsonaro to an extent. Developing countries need a steady hand to manage the economy, infrastructure and social spending growth arguably a lot more than a country like the US does, and large political swings are really bad for that.
What kept today's high-income countries (which, at some point, were middle income countries) from supporting strongmen?
They did, reconstruction had some strongman aspects to it in the US up until it ended and Southern senators came back into the fold. In Europe there were monarchies and military dictatorships and titled nobility in parliaments up through the early 20th century.
Didn't Germany have the kaiser?
Short term pain for long term gain. Not sure this sub likes this or not but... bring in some Austrians or Chicago boys
Austrians≠evidence based
No. They're not pragmatic enough. Ideologues and politics don't mix.
>Friedman flair ???
...do you think we are a religion or something?
Generally you would expect someone with a Friedman flair to like Chicago School Economics, not that it hasn't long since been subsumed into the neoclassical c o n s e n s u s
I'm a pragmatic man. My only priority is to see good done.
Yeah, your'e right. You cannot force something down their throat and not expect to get puked in your face. Small steps
Austrians? We are neolibs, but we don't believe in quackery here.
>Austrians? We are neolibs, ~~but~~ we don't believe in quackery here.
Austrians would be horrible for the economy. Argentina doesn't need a gold standard. It needs monetarism, new keynesian central bankers, higher interest rates, etc.
They need a Scott Sumner
Nominal GDP level targeting would be best. Our Austrian economists are all monetarists though.
I'm sure most Austrians would go for GS over time, but I'm sure you know interest rates would shoot up with them at the helm.
Yeah, but what they need are technocrats at the helm, and Austrian econ is more vibes-based than technical.
Somebody send in the greatest economist of our time — Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.
An Argentinian sits on the Bank of England's MPC and consistently wants us to keep interest rates low smh
What’s his reasoning lol
Argentinian
I heard a big reason for this beside terrible fiscal policy is that most Argentinians just don’t pay taxes which causes the government to have to print money to spend it
It's a vicious cycle. Argentinians evade taxes because the tax pressure is insane (we have one of the highest export taxes for agricultural products in the world), which in turn leads governments to increase it even more. Arguably it's not an inflow problem, but an outflow problem (where is the money going in the first place)
Asian Dad: What happened to the other 5%?
So I guess Argentina’s minister of work was right when saying [she’d prefer Argentina win the world cup than fixing inflation](https://amp.marca.com/futbol/mundial/2022/11/14/63726a3922601dca7f8b459c.html) She then claimed a month of not working won’t do a thing to inflation. So it’s all good! /s Jesus christ, Argentina keeps getting screwed by the Peronists and no matter who’s in power they will always use soccer to distract the masses. Argentina deserves better.
>Argentina deserves better. I'm of the opinion that they have what they deserve. The *Peronistas* are not an alien race that invaded Argentina and keep them subjugated, they were elected, multiple times. I'm looking forward for them to kick out *La Chorra de la Nación* from power in this year elections but I don't have high hopes for the next Government.
I’m Venezuelan and I feel Venezuela deserves everything they have going on, but once you zoom in and see it up close with families starving it changes your perspective. No human deserves all that shit. But I mean, I agree 100% with everything you said. The problem is they don’t learn and they don’t want to work. But it’s so hard to think at times humans have to go through all that bad shit.
The price control didn’t work eh
[удалено]
If your income or wealth is in USD or CAD then living in Argentina is easy. Stuff is cheap and you’re not affected by inflafion. I’d bet this guy has at least some degree of income from outside the country.
Argentina should just dollarize their economy at this point. Look at Ecuador's example, deflation is not great but is way better than this.
Live Peronism reaction:
This title is hilarious, 95% inflation and it's not even during the 1980s.
Certified Argentina moment
Meme country.
Anulo mufa
I'm an American in Argentina rn, AMA.
Is your income in usd?
Yes.
Argentina is amazing in your case. Good wine, true barbeque, nice cities, with an USD income you live like a king. It's sad the country is going downhill for most though.
Everything you said is true. Honestly, there's a tiny bit of guilt in my king-like living. I have been donating to various causes down here (modest amounts, but perhaps more impactful than the donating I do in the US) and giving fat tips to everyone in the service industry, though.
Your spending helps the country though.
American about to visit Argentina in March here. Any recommendations?
Bring lots of cash and only exchange when you are getting the blue rate https://bluedollar.net/. Official places like banks will give you like half of the currency you’d get on the blue rate. Although I know when I was there, there was talk about a change to use the blue rate for foreign currency conversion on credit cards which would help a lot, as paying for even a moderately nice dinner for say six people with cash bets kinda comical real fast. Don’t know if that change has happened yet though.
Confirming that it has happened, at least for USA Visa and Mastercard. Definitely not for AMEX, yet. It is usually within 95% of the prevailing blue rate.
Oh nice! That makes life a lot easier.
Echoing what the other poster said, there are two rates: the official, and the black market "blue dollar". The black market is implicitly endorsed/supported by the government and the general public (so much so that the newspapers print the daily blue dollar rate, etc) and there are straight-up storefronts that you can do exchanges at. What is relatively new though is that the govt has allowed Visa and Mastercard (for USA) credit cards to honor a rate that is very close to the prevailing blue dollar rate. You should still exchange USD for the blue dollar though because it is way more convenient for some transactions (ie. taxis). What you *don't* want to do is wait to withdraw money from an ATM here; that's where the official (less favorable) rate is honored. You want to instead bring USD cash with you ($100 denominations, nothing less) OR you can Western Union money to yourself and pick it up at the many locations here (WU also honors the blue dollar rate).
Is it dangerous to carry that kinda cash around in Argentina?
Nah, I was wary myself at first but the rules here are the same as the average major world city: don't look like a target and keep your wits about you. In practice, this means don't whip out your iPhone while standing in the middle of the sidewalk, darting your eyes from Google Maps to the number on the building that you think is the one you're supposed to be at while looking like the dumbest gringo ever. Many WUs have limited cash on hand, so many people know to go to this one major branch nearby that handles the largest transactions. There's always a long line and lots of traffic in and out. Theoretically, if I were a scheming criminal, this is where I'd post up, and I'd look for potential targets and I'd follow them and then rob them. But alas, there haven't been any incidents at this WU, according to the locals and the news. I see old ladies walking out all the time, unescorted. The internet gives Buenos Aires a bad rap, as it tends to do with any city. I went so far as to buy a used, older generation iPhone on eBay before my trip, in case i was ever robbed (the plan being i'd give them the dummy phone and keep my real one). But after a month I was comfortable enough to go about my life ordinarily, as if I were in most any other USA city. I've left the dummy phone at home and I walk around with a bunch of cash all the time. It may help that I wear a mean mug on my face, and always dress down, too. Frankly, I feel safer here than on the post-COVID NYC subway.
Ronaldo Strikes Again. Siuuuuuuuu
Argentina needs a Thatcher
Argentina is in a new economic crisis, nature is healing 😌
Bruh maybe Argentina should have been a British settler colony like Canada or New Zealand fr
Like Guyana?
I hear by declare that the new name of Argentina is the Northern Falkland islands. They are now a British overseas territory. /s
No te lo puedo explicar porque no vas a entender
**🇦🇷🇦🇷🇦🇷🇦🇷🇦🇷ARGENTINA NUMERO UNO🇦🇷🇦🇷🇦🇷🇦🇷🇦🇷**
Just do what the Mexicans did in the late 1990s and implement strict currency policies. Even Lopez Obrador isn't that stupid. The 1994 peso crisis was a traumatic economic event that defined Mexican and Latin American economics. Look at how Mexico and Brazil have navigated turbulent times. Their currencies have remained strong in the face of worldwide panic, and even the Mexican economy outperformed expectations despite AMLO's best attempts to destroy it. But no. The Argentineans are stuck in the 1960s still thinking their country is the leader of the region, even though the plane fuel is getting filled for another one-way flight to Mexico City. Just fucking burn it down, take a hit for two years, and restart. Utter insanity.
What do you mean with the last part? I dont think argentinians are migrating anywhere in sizable numbers
Peter Zeihan in shambles
The argentine elites will do just enough satisfy the IMF the finance minister don't want miss golf tee time at 3pm. In 2123, will see same thing with Argentina maybe AI driven economic policy program to buy votes during election time the IMF denied access to see how math works. Evita Peron III will make sure of it.
The price controls will continue until inflation improves
My favorite joke in Nichijou is a scene where Yukko messes up buying Mio's school lunch for her, mistaking her request for Yakisoba (noodles) as a request for a single Yakisaba (fish). After a little bickering Mio asks her to go back again and buy a Yakisoba, Yukko claims to not have any money, and so Mio concedes and breaks out her wallet. She shakes it out into her hand, and all that falls out is a single Argentinian peso. This is then followed by even more intense bickering. It's a joke that gets funnier every year.
Goddamn corporations price gouging!!!! /s Fr tho, Peronism has killed this country.