The former government contributed a lot to this, specially in the last year. Poverty has been steadily on the rise since 2003. I cant (imo) blame Milei for this, but I can’t deny that if anything Milei has accelerated the impact of Kirchners’ missmanagement.
Another things to keep in mind, the Kirchners were famous for lying about inflation and poverty indices and this government is consequently “taking pride” in transparency. Milei is also using this numbers to show how bad the economy is… so numbers could be biased or exaggerated.
Poverty here is generally measured by household income, which means that inflation leaves a lot of people under the poverty line, which may or not be momentary cause we get constant salary increases… always under inflation, of course.
The thing is really bad, and people is living out of savings. A sign of that is that we can buy US$ by 1400 pesos in a bank, but people is selling so many dollars in the black market to pay bills that we can buy them for 1000 pesos on the streets.
If all this mess will pay out in the long term, I cant tell, but appealing to our erratic history, I would say that it won’t.
I have noticed that Argentina seems to go in 25 year cycles since Peron. The junta in the 70s privatized a lot and cut social services (not to mention the catastrophic human rights violations), then Menem at the end of the 90s did somewhat the same, and now in 2024 Milei is cutting public spending / social services, and privatizing whatever can be privatized. Is that at all what really has been happening in Argentina?
First, this is just my opinion and I don’t fully understand the situation cause it started way before I was born, and being inside this mess makes everything fuzzy.
The peak of argentinian economy was in the 20s, 30s, when our economy was tied to UK. UK built extensive infraestructure and produced a constant demand of our grains, our lands were more vast and fertile than today, Northern lands (uruguay, brazil) were not as suitable for cattle and sowing as they are today, Panama canal was just starting to operate and most of the international commerce was still being forced to move thorough our waters. All of that faded away and we never truly matched our population growth and needs with our slow lose of wealth and relevancy.
After the 30s we started a slow debacle. Social unrest let Peron rise to power in 45’ and from then on we got into a loop of crisis mixed with military coups and with our two main parties prioritizing destroying each other over making this land viable. Peronism tried to destroy the aristocrat class by milking the land which was their main source of wealth and ucr/military tried to suppress peronism by leaving them out of elections. Since Peron, Menem was the first peronist president that ended his term, and Macri the first non peronist to do so.
Nepotism, corruption are a common thing in both parties. And specially today, peronism has grown into a big mafia.
25 years is too much, we live in constant crisis here with small windows of economical “growth”.
If you ask me what our problem is, it is that our erratic political decisions are inconsistent with what we have and what we can offer to the world.
As a joke, we generally say that the problem of Argentina is that it is full of Argentinians.
Also, whenever you see a pretty good economical growth like the first government of the kirchners, it is that we either had a pretty good sowing session or that we are just recovering from a strong crisis.
First move of any new management is to take the worst possible stocktake and shine the worst possible light to last management’s figures. Then any meagre positive movement or even if things remain the same will look like improvement.
The thing is, I’m not. But if you buy legal dollars, it’s ~800 +75% (a part of that are 30% or so taxes, the other part are 45% or so retentions that are returned as tax deduction doing the proper paperwork).
I held the retained part as taxes because of high inflation, but that’s just me.
You can follow that as “dollar tarjeta”
The blue was near 1350 some time ago and started falling when people began to sell their dollars. Now it is slightly cheaper than buying legal dollars + taxes - retentions.
The former government contributed a lot to this, specially in the last year. Poverty has been steadily on the rise since 2003. I cant (imo) blame Milei for this, but I can’t deny that if anything Milei has accelerated the impact of Kirchners’ missmanagement.
Another things to keep in mind, the Kirchners were famous for lying about inflation and poverty indices and this government is consequently “taking pride” in transparency. Milei is also using this numbers to show how bad the economy is… so numbers could be biased or exaggerated.
Poverty here is generally measured by household income, which means that inflation leaves a lot of people under the poverty line, which may or not be momentary cause we get constant salary increases… always under inflation, of course.
The thing is really bad, and people is living out of savings. A sign of that is that we can buy US$ by 1400 pesos in a bank, but people is selling so many dollars in the black market to pay bills that we can buy them for 1000 pesos on the streets.
If all this mess will pay out in the long term, I cant tell, but appealing to our erratic history, I would say that it won’t.
Every 10 years, Argentina has a crisis that lasts 10 years.
Are you there in Argentina?
I have noticed that Argentina seems to go in 25 year cycles since Peron. The junta in the 70s privatized a lot and cut social services (not to mention the catastrophic human rights violations), then Menem at the end of the 90s did somewhat the same, and now in 2024 Milei is cutting public spending / social services, and privatizing whatever can be privatized. Is that at all what really has been happening in Argentina?
First, this is just my opinion and I don’t fully understand the situation cause it started way before I was born, and being inside this mess makes everything fuzzy.
The peak of argentinian economy was in the 20s, 30s, when our economy was tied to UK. UK built extensive infraestructure and produced a constant demand of our grains, our lands were more vast and fertile than today, Northern lands (uruguay, brazil) were not as suitable for cattle and sowing as they are today, Panama canal was just starting to operate and most of the international commerce was still being forced to move thorough our waters. All of that faded away and we never truly matched our population growth and needs with our slow lose of wealth and relevancy.
After the 30s we started a slow debacle. Social unrest let Peron rise to power in 45’ and from then on we got into a loop of crisis mixed with military coups and with our two main parties prioritizing destroying each other over making this land viable. Peronism tried to destroy the aristocrat class by milking the land which was their main source of wealth and ucr/military tried to suppress peronism by leaving them out of elections. Since Peron, Menem was the first peronist president that ended his term, and Macri the first non peronist to do so.
Nepotism, corruption are a common thing in both parties. And specially today, peronism has grown into a big mafia.
25 years is too much, we live in constant crisis here with small windows of economical “growth”.
If you ask me what our problem is, it is that our erratic political decisions are inconsistent with what we have and what we can offer to the world.
As a joke, we generally say that the problem of Argentina is that it is full of Argentinians.
Also, whenever you see a pretty good economical growth like the first government of the kirchners, it is that we either had a pretty good sowing session or that we are just recovering from a strong crisis.
Interesting theory
First move of any new management is to take the worst possible stocktake and shine the worst possible light to last management’s figures. Then any meagre positive movement or even if things remain the same will look like improvement.
Really interesting. Thanks for this.
I knew nothing about him 5 minutes ago.
Where are you buying pesos at 1400?!
Also, the blue exchange is so small that it doesn’t even affect the economy
The thing is, I’m not. But if you buy legal dollars, it’s ~800 +75% (a part of that are 30% or so taxes, the other part are 45% or so retentions that are returned as tax deduction doing the proper paperwork).
I held the retained part as taxes because of high inflation, but that’s just me.
You can follow that as “dollar tarjeta”
The blue was near 1350 some time ago and started falling when people began to sell their dollars. Now it is slightly cheaper than buying legal dollars + taxes - retentions.