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Comment by kobalsky | Hacker News Reader

> There’s a long tradition here of purchasing U.S. dollars as a hedge.

There's a 200 usd quota per month shared between products, services and currency exchange. If you buy something that exceeds your monthly quota it means that your quota for the next months will be affected.

It's a system designed so that no one who can save money can buy dollars. When poor people started selling their quotas the practice got quickly stopped with taxes that got its price above illegaly traded dollars.

So basically if you need to buy dollars here you are a criminal.

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"Criminal" is strong word here, there is no "rule of law" in Argentina, it is not one of the country's values.

Crime is the norm, not the exception, starting with the government and trickling down to the people.

It is the wrong culture: "If higher ups cheat to get ahead and get away with it, why shouldn't I?".

Result: scaled up crime - corruption, tax evasion, robbing, slacking, etc.

The same in Brazil, mi hermano...

It's incredible how similar Latin American corruption is across countries, I feel that every time I met another Latin American here in Europe/Sweden there's this instantaneous bond on how fucked up our governments (and everyday corruption) are.

I decided to leave and believe it's been the best thing I've ever done for my life, I miss the people I love but I don't miss life back there.

>It's incredible how similar Latin American corruption is across countries, I feel that every time I met another Latin American here in Europe/Sweden there's this instantaneous bond on how fucked up our governments (and everyday corruption) are.

Catholic vs. protestant culture.

Exactly: https://trendguardian.medium.com/in-data-we-trust-2978dacc8c...

“Culture is religion externalized.” - Douglas Phillips

The main thing to understand about protestant culture is that it can afford a beter PR machine. Think 1984 vs Brave New World.

Yep, same reasons Orthodox Christian countries are way behind. It's an uncomfortable topic, but Protestant dominant cultures are generally more equitable and less corrupt.

Why is that? Your assertion looks shockingly true when I eyeball the map of percentage Catholic by country, but I can’t find anything in Catholicism itself that would cause this.

For protestants work is the way to heaven. For catholics work is a punishment.

There is that and other factors.

Ex: "do not steal" is a tenet on both, but it is irrelevant if not obeyed from a personal to an institutional level. Scaled up and in aggregate, you have a country's culture. Not working is a way of "stealing your neighbor's labor"

But now we may have an emerging problem in the US, the breakdown of Protestant values:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29903457

That must be why Ireland is so hopelessly corrupt. Oh, wait.

Uruguay is said to be better -- true? Not true?

Yes, corruption in Uruguay is way lower and the country is more stable. But also it's a very small country, so not many opportunities around for most people.

Yes. Low corruption, low taxes (zero corporate tax for income received from outside the country), and you can even open bank accounts in foreign currencies.

> Crime is the norm, not the exception, starting with the government and trickling down to the people.

I agree with the starting with the government but I am lost when you blame the people (except for obvious crimes): literally there is not law in Argentina, tax evasion is not a crime because it is impossible to have a business without evading taxes (a friend told me) because the system is a trap where everyone could be attacked by the force of law based on ambiguous arguments.

And in Argentina is easy to bribe judges and move the "law" to the direction you want, more if you are powerful.

This is crazy, no wonder a lot of people in there are turning to cryptocurrencies, particularly stablecoins.

Crime begets crime

Buying stablecoins is not illegal though.

It probably is in countries with capital controls, if you use it as a means to circumvent those capital controls.

as if capital controls are not a crime in of themselves...

"crime" here means that crypto incentivizes crime itself, not that it is "illegal" in the country: pump and dump, scams, cybercrime, tax evasion, etc.

When I was in Argentina a few years ago there were money changers peddling dollars on every corner in downtown Buenos Aires, at a time this was illegal (Cristina was president).

Funnily enough they are called "arbolitos" (small trees). Because they are stationary and have green leaves (dollars)

I can still hear them chanting "Cambio, cambio, cambio" and it's been a few years. ATMs give hardly anything and charge a large fee per transaction as well, so it's no surprise people go to arbolitos.

You'd also get a better exchange rate from the arbolitos vs the ATMs.

If I remember correctly, it was referred to as the "black rate". If you paid a vendor in USD directly, you got the "blue rate". Both of which were much better rates than the ATM.

In reality most people don't use "arbolitos" because their rate has a big spread.

Instead people who need to exchange regularly go to "cuevas" (caves) which are just hidden and illegal currency exchanges that have much more volume.

Oh, really? TIL. I will have to ask about next time I'm there! Thank you.

Ah but I heard if you worked for the government during Cristina's presidency when the official price of pesos was artificially kept low, you could get paid 20% of your salary in USD at the government rate!

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