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Comment by gabythenerd | Hacker News Reader

It's interesting that Argentina is in the same decline Venezuela was in (and still is), just with some years of latency. Both countries are in the same economic region, one would think someone would learn from having a hyperinflation near them.

A lot of Venezuelans immigrated to Argentina years ago, and are now leaving Argentina and immigrating to other countries. Some are even going back to Venezuela now that everything there is in dollars and the situation seems to be stabilizing. A somewhat popular opinion is that the country is very corrupt but you can live with it if you earn in dollars.

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> A somewhat popular opinion is that the country is very corrupt but you can live with it if you earn in dollars.

That was the exact same mentality that a lot of people in venezuela(me included) used to have at the beginning of the crisis "The inflation doesn't affect me, I earn in dollars" was a very common attitude for people with remote jobs, but then even the price in dollars started to increase due to the corruption on every level of the supply chain, companies leaving or closing, terrible mismanagement of public services like electricity, water and transportation, and many other terrible decisions. We were too naive...

Well what is there to be done about it really? You stop printing money and servicing debt and you wind up in default, now unable to import goods, which you rely heavily on because you wouldn't be in this situation in the first place is your domestic production was strong. So you get... prices going sky high on imported goods. Either way you dice it, they're fucked. It's an entire country stuck in a debt trap. The only outcome is economic collapse, and all the government can really do is fudge the numbers to slow it down.

It's my understanding Argentina actually isn't heavily dependent on imports. Not only are taxes high on imports, they have a net trade surplus. Argentina also is extremely lucky like US they have extremely diverse environment including excellent farm ground, natural resource, and coastal access. Defaulting on debt might be a good option.

The goods neccesary to raise cattle and grow soy, both some of the most important exports Argentina has, need to have the basics imported such as tools and seeds.

Another problem is that exporting meat have been limited by law to try and control local prices [0], it has instead made Uruguay and Brazil start exporting what Argentina did previously and can't anymore because of state control.

[0] https://batimes.com.ar/news/economy/argentina-extends-export...

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