Hacker News Reader

Comment by lynguist | Hacker News Reader

Big big nope. Argentina is in hyperinflation mode for over 30 years. It didn’t implode.

Economists don’t know everything. Their analyses are too mechanical.

There is a saying, "There are four kinds of countries: developed countries, underdeveloped countries, Japan, and Argentina."

Japan — nobody knows why it grows, and Argentina — nobody knows why it doesn't.

> Japan — nobody knows why it grows

Productivity

https://tradingeconomics.com/japan/gdp-per-capita-ppp

> Argentina — nobody knows why it doesn't

I mean, Argentina's economy has grown a lot since 2002. But for the most part, they've been hurt by a large debt burden and financial mismanagement.

The world is extremely complex and it's very hard to model in a lab or a computer. Economists due to this have a very hard job. Sometimes they get it right but it's not surprising their models have high errors of margin.

Argentina also has vast natural resources, extremely fertile land, and very few people for a country of its size.

It can weather the storm far longer because it just doesn’t have enough resource pressure as older, poorer countries do

With Argentina having hyperinflation for so long, how have they avoided a worse fate similar to Venezuela?

Venezuela is not only almost completely dependent on oil exports (extreme price fluctuations) but it's also not agriculturally self sufficient. It's not the only country with those problems, and they're not insurmountable problems, but it requires good economic planning to be able to handle downturns in those conditions, something Venezuela didn't have.

Argentina, on the other hand, has somewhat more varied exports (though soy and corn products are a large portion) and is agriculturally self sufficient. Unlike Venezuela, which had a "export oil, import everything else" mentality, Argentina has a large degree of economic protectionism and so they do have other sectors to help supply domestic demand to some degree.

There's obviously many other factors, but those are the largest ones in my opinion.

Argentina is blessed with natural resources and vast fertile land. It is perhaps the second best piece of geography in the world in terms of natural resources and fertile land after America

The mystery is why it doesn’t grow, not why it doesn’t collapse. Inflation is a beast if people can’t get enough food. But Argentina has never had much of a problem in that respect

There are some who argue Argentina would face massive social unrest if it weren't for it's welfare programs.

"Benítez is one of millions of Argentines who survive largely thanks to soup kitchens and state welfare programs, many of which are funneled through politically powerful social movements linked to the ruling party. Almost a third of Argentine households are estimated to receive some kind of social assistance."

https://apnews.com/article/politics-argentina-buenos-aires-i...

Reply on news.ycombinator.com