Argentina bans beef exports for 30 days in effort to reduce domestic prices | Hacker News Reader

Argentina bans beef exports for 30 days in effort to reduce domestic prices

abc.net.au

22 pointsadrian_mrd9 comments

I can't fathom the mental gymnastics needed to enact this type of regulation.

You are essentially stopping the flow of foreign capital into the country on an economy with extreme inflation and unemployment rate.

People don't need beef. Trying to make an easily substituted luxury good affordable that is bringing a significant portion of all foreign capital into the country seems short sighted, to say the least.

> I can't fathom the mental gymnastics

Welcome to Kirschnerism...

I love Argentina, it's such a great place to visit, and is still hopefully the place I would retire, but politically I fear it might be headed towards Venezuela.

Completely agree, it's a wonderful place to visit, but all the politicians are so incompetent it hurts

> People don't need beef.

I agree technically speaking, but try telling that to the average Argentinian ;)

https://idlewords.com/2006/04/argentina_on_two_steaks_a_day.... (by Maciej Cegłowski, the creator of Pinboard)

I first read this perhaps ten years ago, and I re-read it every year or two, hoping to one day make it there to experience it myself.

Now I know who wrote it! Thank you!

That this because regulation purpose is not fixing a problem, but making government look good.

Many people does not think in terms of 'flow of foreign capital', but in 'greedy exporters are hiking prices to get rich'. So forbidding exports and fixing prices look good to them (especially with propaganda support), while macroeconomic effects will go unnoticed.

(from experience in Russia, but Argentina looks quite similar in political structure)

As a beef farmer my natural inclination would be to hold off on sending animals to be killed until the ban is lifted and China is back buying beef.

This of course will lower three amount of beef being killed... And probably drive up domestic prices.

Unintended consequences

But then you need to feed them while the ban lasts, increasing costs and whatnot

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