Lessons from Argentina's Crazy Economy
inc.com
inc.com
1) From reading this article, one could asume commercial and financial regulations change by the hour, while in fact is the opposite.
We have a gargantuan commercial code of byzantine
complexity that has not really been modified in the
last 50 years.
We also have a terribly regressive and unfair tax
system that includes 21% VAT even for food products
and wealth tax even for salaried employees with
more than 1400 dollars of monthly income.
Regardless of the recurrent crises, starting up a
successful tech company here is possible, as proven
by Globant, OfficeNet, MercadoLibre, et al.I grew up in post-communist Romania, and I've also seen this movie before. Immediately after 1990 (the fall of communism) money started losing their value. At the beginning money were losing their value by "only" 40-50% per year, to a maximum of ~150% inflation rate in the late '90s. It was only in the mid 2000s' that the inflation rate first dropped to single digits.
I can still remember reading Malthus in high-school, and about how he was saying that the middle-class people are always the worst affected by the economic crisis. What can I say? My parents went from a secure, middle-class position (apartment, car, country-house) to relying on subsistence-agriculture in the space of maximum 10 years. And they weren't the only ones.
I moved to Cluj (Transylvania) this spring.
I am thinking about looking for another job, but would like to stay here. I am scared that telecommuting will make me unhappy.
Good food, wonderful nature, good weather (ok, most anywhere has better weather than Scandinavia), nice people, a hot girlfriend, etc.
Relax, things are a lot better now (even for me, I'm on HN, ain't I? :)). What I'm talking about happened 10-15 years ago.
And congratulations for choosing Cluj. I'm usually trapped in Bucharest but I'm happy that tomorrow I'll go to Sibiu for a 4-day vacation. It's only a 2-h drive from Cluj I think, I highly recommend it for when you have time to discover the rest of the country :).
I've been to Sigishoara, which was really nice. I really look forward to seeing more.
The first week here, I had this conversation...
My work friends said: "That is worth checking out, there is a nice lake over there." I yawned and told them that I've seen lakes before, but "the mountains around the city looks really cool". They looked confused and said "Uh, do you mean the hills?"
But frankly, I'm not that curious about Bucharest. :-)
I do wish there were more gypsy music bands around Cluj.
It is a bit embarrassing to like "muzika popular", which seems to be the most uncool thing around? (-: Otoh, it might help make me popular with the girlfriend's 70 year old mother... :-)
Argentina is completely corrupt. You can bribe a policeman in the street, you can bribe the customs personnel while everyone is there. Justice?
US has bad economic signals, unjustice, etc but nothing compares to a simulated and passive state.
> "...I wasn't going to put all of my risk in Latin America again in my life." At the end of 2002, he left the company and moved his family to Miami.
I think Miami is a lot more Latin American than Buenos Aires.
In terms of economic stability, Miami is still part of the US so it's less risky for running a business. Not the greatest place for a startup, but a good compromise for someone who wants to travel to South America frequently.
Last I checked, Spain was in Europe.
Saying Miami is more Latin American than Buenos Aires is stereotypical and prejudice because this statement suggests there is something intrinsically Latin American about Latin America. Latin America is a huge space (a population of 580,086,590 which the parent seeks to generalize), there are various cultures and subcultures, various languages and dialects. Whatever J. Lo has brainwashed people into thinking is "Latin American" is not all-encompassing and should not be representative of it.
Thus, Buenos Aires is just as very Latin American as La Paz or San Juan or Rio de Janeiro or Havana.
The fact that more Italians immigrated to Argentina does not make them more "European", since Spain, the country that colonized most of Latin America is European. Since its colonization, Latin America adopted a lot of traditions from Spain and the rest of Europe, thanks to many Latin American governments asking for more European immigrants to "fill the void" and work the land. However, not all countries adopted the same traditions to the same degree and some preferred other European traditions (that could also be shared with Spain, Portugal and the rest of Western Europe).
Thus, the statement "Buenos Aires is not particularly representative of Latin America, it's more like a hybrid between LatAm and Europe" is wrong because most of Latin America includes Europe in its transculturation, acculturation, syncretism, miscegenation and hybridity.
"Thus, the statement "Buenos Aires is not particularly representative of Latin America, it's more like a hybrid between LatAm and Europe" is wrong because most of Latin America includes Europe in its transculturation, acculturation, syncretism, miscegenation and hybridity."
If you travel to different Latin American countries you'll realize the difference beyond any forced formalization/logic of a statement.
Also, I studied it formally (at university) and have written numerous research papers on Latin American identity, history and culture.
And now I have to stop typing because I have to go teach Spanish.
Similarly, Boston is part of the United States, but it's one of the most European cities in the US.
Anyway, I don't think it is appropriate to continue with this subject on this type of site.
But all of those things are true only to a tiny extent in Buenos Aires, and a more noticeable but still small extent in the rest of Argentina. This is what genocide looks like.
So I wasn't saying that Argentina is more European than Bolivia, Puerto Rico, Brazil, Cuba, or Miami because it's less Spanish. I was saying that Argentina is more European than Bolivia, Puerto Rico, Brazil, or Cuba because it's less American, because none of the things I said in the previous paragraph are true here, and they're still true in those places. The most distinctively American thing about Buenos Aires is that everybody drinks yerba mate.
By the way, Diego grew up here in Buenos Aires, where I also live. So however much you may disagree with our conceptions of what "Latin America" means, you can't blame poor J. Lo for them.
Let me first say this confusion exists also amongst some Latin Americans because there is a lack of Latin American history (as South American and Central American continents) taught in Latin America. Each country focuses largely on their own because each country has such a rich and diverse history.
But let's take your argument apart.
BROWN:
The whole subject of "brown" and their diverse shades has been discussed before and is currently joked about in Peruvian politics, where Alan García said he was more Peruvian because of his "copper" skin color. Naturally, this is ridiculed by most because it is a joke to talk about skin color since mestizos can be all shades of brown (indigenous blood notwithstanding). And then there is tanning (even mentioning this sounds ridiculous); as in, there are people with lighter skin who just happen to be tanned, because they live in an area where it is mostly sunny (sometimes all year round). You'll find a higher percentage of "white"-looking people in capital cities in Latin America. And many mestizos can pass off as Spanish (from Spain, just in case it isn't clear). And there are also indigenous peoples who are white (see indigenous groups that live closer to the Andean Cordillera or similar places of higher altitudes, such as Huaraz where there is a mix of all skin colors and valleys such as Pasco where there is an Austro-German community that immigrated there from the late 1800s. Uruguay probably has a larger "white" population than Argentina, and Paraguay has a very high one, too. You'll find lots of white people in Southern Brazil. One last thing about "brown", Latin Americans generally accept, rightfully so, that being "brown" has very little to do with Moorish or African ancestry, and if you have any noticeable Moorish or African features, you are mostly considered to have "black" attributes, since blacks do not originate from Latin America.
LANGUAGE:
No, most people do not speak French as their native language in Latin America and the Caribbeans. Haiti is the obvious one that has French and Creole as their official language, but only about 10% speak it fluently, and this is in a population of 9 million. French Guiana obviously has French as their official language, but they're a population of 217,000 with many people speaking other dialects and languages. Suriname has Dutch as their official language, with Guyana and Belize having English as theirs and a minority speak other Cariban languages, with tiny Belize having 40% Spanish speakers, I believe. These countries are minorities, though. That's about it for French. Portuguese is only spoken in Brazil, a country with a population of 203 million. All this out of a population of 580 million in Latin America. As for Guaraní, yes, it is an official language of Paraguay, with 4,650,000 speakers; a majority since the country's population is 6 million, but still a minority within the total Latin American population. If you want to count a language that is spoken by 200,000 people (Mapuzugun), go ahead, but then we start getting into the smaller languages and dialects, too, which are many, all throughout Latin America. Peru and Bolivia are interesting in that they sought to preserve indigenous culture. Peru's official languages are Spanish, Quechua and Aymara, in order of amount of speakers. Aymara is actually spoken by very few Peruvians, though, and Quechua by 13% of the population--another minority language. Quechua is spoken by 20% of Bolivia's population, and Aymara 14%, with Spanish being the majority.
I mention all of this so you can have a perspective for what I am about to say about language in Argentina. When colonizers arrived in modern day Argentina, there were about 35 languages spoken there. Now there are only 12. A variant of Quechua (called Quichua, most likely different from the "Incan" Quechua) is spoken in Santiago de Estero by 100,000 people, a city founded by Spanish settlers. Four Guaraní variants are spoken in Argentina: Chiriguano (known in Argentina as Ñandeva) spoken in Jujuy and Salta by about 15,000 people; the Guaraní Correntino is the official language of Corrientes; Mbyá is spoken by 3,000 people in Misiones; and lastly, the Paraguayan Guaraní spoken at various parts of the borders. Chaco has "co-official" languages: Qom, Moqoít, and Wichí (spoken by 45,000) from the Mataco language family. In Rosario, there are about 10,000 Wichi speakers/peoples. There are other dialects and subdialects such as Mivaclé, Chorote, and in Patagonia (Santa Cruz, specifically), Tehuelche (Aonikenk or Aonek'o 'ajen), with all these also being minority languages/dialects and the last spoken by just a few; there used to be more in the south, but the Conquest of the Desert nearly wiped them all out.
My point is there is a wealth of variety in each country, and many minority languages and minority peoples. Argentina is not an exception. All of them mixed with some type of European, whether it was a Western, Central or Eastern European.
And just to be clear, very few Catholics believe in Catholic saints that correspond to "American gods". And if by "American religions" you mean "indigenous religions", then, no. Most of Latin America is Roman Catholic, with an increasing number of Protestants, namely in Brazil.
The reason brown-skinned mestizos can pass as Spanish is because many Spanish people have a fair bit of Moorish blood, so they're brown-skinned themselves. "Moorish" can mean lots of different ethnic groups, some but not all of whom look "black".
I didn't know about these pink-skinned American indigenous people. Where can I learn more?
Uruguay definitely has a larger "white" population than Argentina.
It is certainly true that most people don't speak French as their native language in Latin America. But I didn't say they did. I said that most people in Latin America do speak one of French, Spanish, or Portuguese. I included French to avoid the debate about whether Haiti and French Guiana are part of Latin America. Adding more Romance languages to the list (Romansch! Ladino!) wouldn't make the statement less true. That's simple logic.
Suriname, Belize, and Guyana aren't part of Latin America, so they're irrelevant.
The numbers you quote for Bolivia are for primary language: 20% of Bolivians primarily speak Quechua. A much larger number speak primarily Spanish but also Quechua. I suspect the same thing is true of the other statistics you cite.
Your statistics for Argentina are a good demonstration of how Argentina is much less American (and more European) than the rest of the continent. In Peru, 20% of the people primarily speak Quechua; the Quechua-speaking community you mention in Santiago del Estero, by contrast, is 0.25% of the Argentine population, proportionally 80 times smaller.
There is indeed a wealth of variety in each country, even in Argentina, but Argentina's American heritage, in terms of language, genes, and religion, is extremely marginal here in the capital, and marginal even in the rest of the country.
> And just to be clear, very few Catholics believe in Catholic saints that correspond to "American gods". And if by "American religions" you mean "indigenous religions", then, no.
There are lots of examples of syncretic saint/American-god combinations. Here is one you might find interesting:
http://www.uv.mx/popularte/esp/scriptphp.php?sid=387
Of course the Catholic people who worship, excuse me, venerate these saints do not believe that they are worshipping Aztec or Maya or Mapuche gods or celebrating Aztec religious festivals; that would be heretical. Nevertheless, there are identifiable collections of attributes that have been transferred from pagan deities to Catholic saints, and from pagan festivals to Catholic holidays.
Not around here, though. We just have Gauchito Gil.
Regarding "pink-skinned" American indigenous peoples, the thing you have to understand is that there are many patches of Latin American territory that are not visited or studied (you can say they remain "undiscovered"), so there is no nomenclature or taxonomy for a specific tribe. So, there are dozens of indigenous tribes with no names and many that haven't been discovered yet. I mentioned the areas where they are from so you can get an idea and Google the places (Huaraz, Pozuzo, etc.), but, as you know, there was an incredible amount of mixing from Europeans (from all over Western and Central Europe) and the indigenous peoples, in this case from Peru.
The study of non-Spanish European immigrants in other South American countries that are not Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, Chile, and I assume Southern Brazil, is still in its infancy, and, as an example (because I wrote on this and know more about it), German immigrants in many parts of the continent were never documented, and families of German descent (myself included) are only now formalizing everything and documenting where their ancestors came from and giving a rough estimate of a year of arrival based on memory and oral traditions. It's very difficult, though, because of the way Latin America functions, both politically, bureaucratically and socially. The take away point is that Latin America is a lot more diverse than books or numbers state, but the issue is that we can only guide ourselves by the numbers and facts (creating a dichotomy). This is why in Latin America we talk a lot about the "other history", the history that is not written or formalized, the history of oral tradition and information handed down through other means. Even in Argentina, there is a movie called "La historia oficial". It is one of Latin America's major themes in history.
Despite all this, here I go citing numbers again (because, unfortunately, that is what we have to work with): there are only 48 million indigenous peoples (discovered) in all of the Americas. Usually, only people who consider themselves "indigenous" (there is a social aspect to it, too, not just biological) speak an indigenous language. This means indigenous peoples are a minority and, in fact, are in danger of becoming extinct.
The reason why I brought up Peru and Bolivia is because they have the highest population of aborigines, and because they understand that they need to be protected. Peru and Cuba have a long history of sociopolitical discourse protecting minorities and different ethnicities.
Despite this "other history" and "undiscovered tribes", I do believe it is better to err on the side of caution. There is still much to be done and studied in Latin America. Because each group of people lives a different "reality" and each region is so isolated from one another, I'd rather think there is more to be found out and looked at, because not everything is as homogenized and connected as the United States (but even there, Americans aren't aware of customs and differences between other regions, and how many parts of the country look like a "developing nation").
Anyway, I need to cut this short, but on the subject of syncretism, the major indigenous gods were transferred over to Catholicism because Europeans needed a way to explain to indigenous peoples about Christianity, and as masters of proselytism, they understood that they had to get on their good side and gain their trust ("tame" them, in colonial speak) in order to facilitate a conquest. So, there is some overlap, but not much, because the God of Rain or God of Thunder had no real equivalent in Christianity, and Europeans taught indigenous peoples that these gods were inferior and these characteristics were held by an all-mightier god. So, most indigenous creation gods became the equivalent of the Christian God. As such Tonantzin, the female counter part of an All Mighty God, became Virgen de Guadalupe in Nueva España, just as the First Council of Constantinople made the Virgin Mary "official". Both of these female counterparts were created for similar reasons and both were derived from pagan gods/concepts.
Anyway, yes, of course, Suriname, Belize and Guyana aren't Latin American countries, but they are territorially in Latin America, and I mentioned them since you mentioned Haiti, which isn't really considered a Latin American country (there is a whole debate on what we should call "Latin America" or Spanish-speaking countries and what countries should be included, along with Brazil and Spain). So, I mentioned these other countries just in case.
Anyway, good chat!
I haven't tried to do business in Miami, so you might be right about that.
Inflation is also pretty bad, but I don't think it falls completely on the shoulder of the Government. Some items are simply overpriced. I'm not talking between a big store and a simple corner store, I mean between two big chains you can see price differences of 50% or more sometimes. Again, taking advantage of the lack of regulation.
And we don't all see the U.S. as THE economic model, far from it.
Speaking from the entrepreneurship perspective, there is a big issue having employees, if you fire them you need to pay a salary for each worked year. So a employee with 10 years of work receives 10 salaries if he's fired.
The problem is that these regulations change like the direction of the wind, and are unevenly enforced, and easily dodged via bribery.
I am from Argentina and I found this disturbing: "taxes on commercial profits in Argentina add up to an effective maximum rate of 108 percent"
But also very true.
I wonder what would happen if the Argentina government reduced the taxes (because for the past 10 years I feel they've only gone up)
Would that encourage businesses to pay taxes instead of doing everything 'en negro'? It would encourage me.
As an entrepreneur I want to pay taxes but they are extremely high, punishing me for the corruption that surrounds me
Hint: The people who run the government make their living by taking bribes and other acts of corruption that are a result of their regulations.
In the US, corruption on the transactional level (ie. lobbying congress, etc is out of scope here) is an exception that ultimately results in a government official going to jail. In a place like Argentina, corruption is a hidden tax that is reflected on nearly every transaction.
The problem, if I had to sum it up in a soundbite, is that you can't trust anybody. And so nobody trusts you. Unless you're family. You can imagine the effect that has on the competence of officials and executives.
The crazy laws are a big problem, but not as big as the endemic non-government corruption. Bank financing? We had to get a personal recommendation from our accountant to open a corporate bank account.
Bitcoin isn't going to help with that. If anything, it will make it worse.
The funny thing is, living here is pretty good, if you can afford the bare minimum needed to survive.
Also, those salaried workers have rights. If you can't pay them, the government shuts you down.
But some how in this case it seems the order is all jumbled up..
Deflation is different -- basically everyone gets scared and stops spending money. As a result, the "velocity" of money slows down and prices drop in a race to the bottom. (The best example of this was the car market in 2009. If you had cash, you could get unbelievable deals on cars.)
With inflation, there is plenty of money out there, but evaluating risk gets difficult. High inflation tends to have a snowball effect, so you don't want people owing you money -- think of it as compounding interest in reverse. So you end up with informal contracts... "Give me a car today, and you get 15 goats or hunks of aluminum in July."
A creditor wants informal contracts, because like in the US, paper money is "Legal Tender for All Debts, Public and Private." But to have informal contracts, you need a personal/trust connection... and that encourages corruption and nepotism.
Also, the unions push hard for yearly increases in salaries.
At higher levels of inflation everything breaks because of the lack of predictability.
But EU is going to go down first.