From 1st World to 3rd World!

[QUOTE=Lysander]Fair enough, but by the same token should you not also delete posts which bash Argentina. Argentina has many faults, but this forum is supposed to be about P4P and associated topics (apartments, food, fishing etc) and not about politics. I agree with Fernando on at least one thing, that allowing ill-informed Argie bashing posts probably does deter Argentinian contributors to this forum and thus deprives us of some useful local experiences and information about the P4p scene.

Lysander[/QUOTE]I wouldn't permit anything as vile and as inaccurate as this to be said about the Argentinos either: [quote=Fernando22]Not by chance american people is considered the scourge of humanity by three cuarters of the world nowadays.[/quote]

[QUOTE=Jackson]I wouldn't permit anything as vile and as inaccurate as this to be said about the Argentinos either:[/QUOTE]I am not the greatest admirer of Argentinos, in or out of Argentina. Their economic situation is self-inflicted, on-going and seems to be insoluble. So it is a bit difficult to tell the verifyable truth without being negative. Their personal lack of ethics are the stuff of legend and in general, this naturally extends into their business, politics and religious life. So I support Jackson in not allowing vile inaccuracies to be posted about Argentinos. Hell, I think it should be extended and include pleasant inaccuracies to be wiped from the forum as well. I read more bullshit that seeks to cast the Argentinos in a good light than what is posted that denigrates them.

Argento

[QUOTE=Argento]Their personal lack of ethics are the stuff of legend and in general,[/QUOTE]Please, don't include me on this. According to my own experience, lack of ethics is to be found everywhere in the world and expresses itself in different forms. Please, think it twice before making unfare generalizations.

[QUOTE=TejanoLibre]I was talking to a friend of "ours" the other night and we were wondering if there was another example of a country that literally dropped from first world status to third world satus?

Rags to riches is eazy; but it seems that Argentina went from riches to rags![/QUOTE]My vision on this is that Argentina never was a first world country. The GNP per capita alone is not a good measure for deciding that. At the beginning of the XXth century, Argentina was effectively part of Commonwealth, providing beef for the UK. The structure of the society was similar to that of the South in the US before the Civil War (no industry, agriculture and food based economy) In my opinion, no developed society can arise under those conditions.

Industralization started late, basically during the first goverment of Peron in 1945. This basic industry was intended for internal comsumption and not for exporting. Anyway, that basic industry got promoted during the late 50's and early 60's (Frondizi was the president that pushed the most for heavy industralization). Among those local industries was the development of nuclear energy following a plan of slow breeding reactors (not useful for nuclear weapons).

During the late 60 's local brands of cars were produced (Rastrojero, Torino) That development went on until 1976, when the military took power. The most important issue was the changing of the economic profile of Argentina, forcing it to go back to its early role of food-producing country with no industry. I've seen hundreds of small, family type and larger, industries closing down between 1976 and 1978. To make a long story short, that plan was successful, and Argentina got de-industrialized. This change was welcomed by several economic actors that got greatly benefited from it (e.g. finance, banks, cattle owners), and got the middle class as the great looser, because its wealth was tied to the local industry that employed a large number of people. Similar changes happened in other countries at the same time (late 70's), e.g., in Turkey. Brazil never went into this change, and kept with a slow but steady industralization.

Today in Argentina this debate is still opened: will this country follow the path of Brazil or that of Paraguay (no industry whatsoever, everything is imported). And I would like to add that the composition of the society in 1975 had 80 % of middle class people, employed (mainly by the industry) workers and professionals, by far the largest of Latin America, with good free public health and education systems. Most of the middle class at the time had a tendendy to cultivate cultural values as well, and for that reason one can find today so many used books and long play stores. Moreover, Argentina has gotten 5 Nobel Prize winners, 3 of them in Sciences, and basically two that carried their work locally.

That's my two cents on this.

[quote]Inflexible labor regulations continue to hinder employment creation and productivity growth. The non-salary cost of employing a worker is high, and dismissing a redundant employee can be costly.[/QUOTE][url]http://www.heritage.org/index/country/argentina[/url]

There are probably few political issues that El Alamo / Jackson and I agree on, but this Union thing in Argentina is one. My sweet thang does the salaries for a few enterprises and the so called benefits / perks workers receive is mind boggling for me. Workers receive extra pay if they have children. Think it is about 200 peso a month for each kid. Another perk, an extra month's pay every six months. Fourteen months pay for twelve months work. There is also mandatory severance pay, one month's salary for each year worked. And trying to fire an employee is like going through a divorce in the USA. Courts, lawyers are all involved. Termination does not happen. Do not know how anyone can do business in Argentina. It is entirely the Argentine's business how they wish to run their country, but damn guys, you are shooting yourselves in the foot.

It is crazy. Cablevision needed to change my cable box. I had to make an appointment one month in advance to get this done. Cablevision told me they could not do it any sooner because of the workload. The day of the appointment, three guys show up. One guy carrying the new box, one guy to change the plugs and the other guy carried the old box out. Fuck me. I am still scratching my ass on that event. All you can do is laugh.

[QUOTE=Damman][url]http://www.heritage.org/index/country/argentina[/url]

Workers receive extra pay if they have children. Think it is about 200 peso a month for each kid. Another perk, an extra month's pay every six months. Fourteen months pay for twelve months work. There is also mandatory severance pay, one month's salary for each year worked. And trying to fire an employee is like going through a divorce in the USA. [/QUOTE]Had all this stuff come up in a couple of M & A transactions here. The labor audit is one of the key due diligence areas. If the seller improperly severed some worker years ago, no doubt that worker will be looking for the new owner to pay him. Even if all past layoffs were done properly, when news of the deal gets out, the line starts forming. If you inherit an employee who has been with the company for 12 years, you must account for paying him one year in severance if and when that occurs.

If you own an argie biz that you'd like to sell to an international buyer, you need to groom your headcount on your own, prior to putting it up for sale, in order to reduce some of the inevitable overhang that employment issues will cause.

You guys have to understand where Fernando22 is coming from. He's not really talking to the majority of the members of this forum. He's actually just talking to (yelling at) the minority yet very vocal right wing / tea party members of this forum. While small, they are a belligerent group, ready to yell from their luxury condo apartments in Recoleta about just how stupid the Argentinians really are. Although no one on the street would hear them, because all Americans live in the penthouse. This particular topic was started just to discuss just how shitty Argentina has become (riches to rags---really? So don't be surprised when an actual Argentinian comes to defend his country. Yes, he's coming from a leftist POV, and yes he doesn't actually have much ammunition to work with (besides the women and the architecture) But you still have to respect a man who is trying to verbally defend his countries honor. Especially when it's from a bunch of guys whos' only reason for going there is to fuck the women.

And lets face it, those rich tea partiers are comically extreme on so many ways. They're the right wing version of loud angry lesbian feminazis. Too extreme to even try negotiating with. And just like the mannish lesbos, if someone have the gaul to actually disagree with them, you can see the pure anger building up in them in their eyes. (As a NYC Democrat, I fucking hate what the mannish lesbians are doing to Manhattan politics. At least you can actually negotiate and joke around with the gay guys. The right wingers on this forum are idiological to the extreme, even when the particulars of a situation are to everyones benefit (health care reform--bail out package)

Except when it comes to going to another country to pay to fuck women. Then "life is full of moral uncertainties."

P. S. Jackson, it's great to see that you are a libertarian, theoretically, I would be one too. Unfortunately, I have discovered that within the last few years in America, in many rural states, the Libertarian party has been infiltrated with hardcore racist, militia movement characters. Many of who are bent on military revolution (and are incidentally great friends with the tea party movement) Being that I'm black, I understandably cannot join such a crowd. Just a warning, that when you say you're a Libertarian now, this is a vision that goes through many peoples heads

If the Argentinan economic system wasn't so corrupt and if Kirchner wasn't such a stupid *****, Argentinas exchange rate would be around the same as Brazils. And as a monger, I don't really want that.

After all, there's a reason that you come to Argentina and not Chile or the sex mecca that is Brazil.

Yes, like a shoe factory owner, I look for the countries with favorable exchange rates, and a good amount of cheap, exploitable local "talent".

Brazil has the talent en masse, but the exchange rate is horrible. Currently 1. 78=$1

Most of Chiles "talented" sex workers are from other contries. That's because they get paid a lot more in chile than in any other S. American country.

Only Argentina has the favorable exchange rate, and a great pool of 22yr olds who are willing to suck and swallow.

This is directly because of the corrupt politicians and bad populist policies, that you speak so badly of. Just try going to Sweden and getting a smoking hot 22yr old blondie to suck and fuck you for $85-$100 an hour.

So you see, even YOU can support left wing policies. I'm just waiting for Kirchner to do something else stupid so that the exchange will go up to 4. 50 =$1.

[QUOTE=Tyrell]You guys have to understand where Fernando22 is coming from. He's not really talking to the majority of the members of this forum. He's actually just talking to (yelling at) the minority yet very vocal right wing / tea party members of this forum. While small, they are a belligerent group, ready to yell from their luxury condo apartments in Recoleta about just how stupid the Argentinians really are. Although no one on the street would hear them, because all Americans live in the penthouse. This particular topic was started just to discuss just how shitty Argentina has become (riches to rags---really? So don't be surprised when an actual Argentinian comes to defend his country. Yes, he's coming from a leftist POV, and yes he doesn't actually have much ammunition to work with (besides the women and the architecture) But you still have to respect a man who is trying to verbally defend his countries honor. Especially when it's from a bunch of guys whos' only reason for going there is to fuck the women.

And lets face it, those rich tea partiers are comically extreme on so many ways. They're the right wing version of loud angry lesbian feminazis. Too extreme to even try negotiating with. And just like the mannish lesbos, if someone have the gaul to actually disagree with them, you can see the pure anger building up in them in their eyes. (As a NYC Democrat, I fucking hate what the mannish lesbians are doing to Manhattan politics. At least you can actually negotiate and joke around with the gay guys. The right wingers on this forum are idiological to the extreme, even when the particulars of a situation are to everyones benefit (health care reform--bail out package)

Except when it comes to going to another country to pay to fuck women. Then "life is full of moral uncertainties."[/QUOTE]Fernando22 was just repeating the same tired diatribe, which amounts to this: The world's losers are jealous of the world's winners, and thus they salivate over the prospects of banding together and taking by government fiat that which they could not earn themselves in a competitive environment.

No threat really, because the losers [u]are[/u] losers and thus generally incapable of organizing to a level necessary to represent any credible threat to the winners. However, the cool thing about losers is that if any of them actually get off their asses and begin producing their own wealth, then they too become winners and begin to see their former colleagues for what they really are: Losers.

Jackson

[QUOTE=Jackson]Fernando22 was just repeating the same tired diatribe, which amounts to this: The world's losers are jealous of the world's winners, and thus they salivate over the prospects of banding together and taking by government fiat that which they could not earn themselves in a competitive environment.

No threat really, because the losers [u]are[/u] losers and thus generally incapable of organizing to a level necessary to represent any credible threat to the winners. However, the cool thing about losers is that if any of them actually get off their asses and begin producing their own wealth, then they too become winners and begin to see their former colleagues for what they really are: Losers.

Jackson[/QUOTE]I respectfully disagree with this philosophy. Who is the winner: somebody who dominates other people? Who is the looser? Somebody who doesn't care what other people do or think? Was Mozart a looser (he died alone and in total povertry) Was Rockefeller a winner? Is power, or money, or domination the unique value accepted by everybody that gives sense and justifies a life? Many other points of view are equally acceptable about reality and a possible positive action would be to confront these in a civilized manner. By accepting this philosophy as the unique that is acceptable, there would a risk (or intention) of justifying domination: "some people are poor because they don't work hard, or are not fit enough to survive in the natural scenario of Darwinian competition". This view, common in some societies but not in others, is a way of avoiding discussing the moral aspects that Goethe exposed as soon as freedom became a reality in Europe in his Dr. Faust. My own phylosophy is to live and let people live without my judment. The root of many of these subjects, in my opinion too important to be avoided of an continous discussion, are to be found in the reason for the Reformation, which in my view is the founding stone of capitalism.

[QUOTE=Tyrell]If the Argentinan economic system wasn't so corrupt and if Kirchner wasn't such a stupid *****, Argentinas exchange rate would be around the same as Brazils. And as a monger, I don't really want that.

After all, there's a reason that you come to Argentina and not Chile or the sex mecca that is Brazil.

Yes, like a shoe factory owner, I look for the countries with favorable exchange rates, and a good amount of cheap, exploitable local "talent".

Brazil has the talent en masse, but the exchange rate is horrible. Currently 1. 78=$1

Most of Chiles "talented" sex workers are from other contries. That's because they get paid a lot more in chile than in any other S. American country.

Only Argentina has the favorable exchange rate, and a great pool of 22yr olds who are willing to suck and swallow.

This is directly because of the corrupt politicians and bad populist policies, that you speak so badly of. Just try going to Sweden and getting a smoking hot 22yr old blondie to suck and fuck you for $85-$100 an hour.

So you see, even YOU can support left wing policies. I'm just waiting for Kirchner to do something else stupid so that the exchange will go up to 4. 50 =$1.[/QUOTE]This is really well said, by a newbie contributor.

Apart from this, I'm afraid this thread had deteriorated considerably, and I wouldn't mind seeing it die. It started as a question of world history. It has degenerated into a thumbs up or thumbs down form on the Argentine economy, or the Argentine psyche in general, and I'm not loving this trend.

BTG