10 ms·

The Mighty Fallen: Argentina and the Great Depression

59 points by Thevet 5y ago

gus_massa 5y ago
> Speculators amass basic necessities and grocery stores were as empty if not emptier in December 2019 than any supermarkets in the UK at the height of the pandemic. I don't remember that.
- ericol 5y ago
  Me neither.
- kragen 5y ago
  Yeah, I don't remember supermarkets here in Argentina being particularly empty in December 02019. On the other hand, it's hardly unusual for supermarkets here to have a noticeable amount of empty shelf space, especially Chinese supermarkets off main streets on Sundays; maybe in the UK that's what they looked like at the height of the pandemic? I don't remember bars in Palermo being full of English-speakers at the time, either, just the occasional group. Overall, though, I feel like the article is mostly accurate.
  - aunty_helen 5y ago
    I was one of those English-speakers clogging the bars in Dec-Jan. I can assure you that on a Friday night at Trova, there was enough people to clog the footpath and part of the road. However, the supermarkets seemed fine, not too expensive and reasonably well stocked. More concerningly the blue rate went from 60s to 75+ while I was there. And the withrawl taxes added to the atms at the time (2k for 2.3k)
    - kragen 5y ago
      I went to bars there too, and yeah, there were lots of people, but the ones I saw were always mostly speaking Spanish. Or Portuguese. Maybe I didn't go at the right (wrong?) time.
  - robocat 5y ago
    > 02019 why not write that as 0002019 or 000002019?
- mrleinad 5y ago
  Yeah, that didn't happen.
bishoprook2 5y ago
wow, does that article not deliver on the title.
telesilla 5y ago
I visited around 10 years ago and found it to be a truly interesting country, though indeed mired in recent controversy and historical bloodshed and all the political to-and-fro discussed in the article, but also full of delights and fascinating people and strong cultural elements (grilled meat! Late night dancing!), a clear cross between old Europe and the new world, more than any other perhaps. My anecdote on the finance system: the local street market had signs posted by the local government that mandated prices-in order to curb inflation. That was a first for me, seeing vendors unable to set their own prices.
- mc32 5y ago
  There’s something sick about their economy. Quite a few economic dynamos emerged from the legacy of bloodshed and dictatorships. Argentina has natural resources. It has institutions. But perhaps it lacks vision and the will to carry out that vision.
  - ericol 5y ago
    We have a very crooked political caste. I'm giving this as an example; I don't want to get into a political discussion. But in the last government alone, we received around 50 billion dollars from the FMI also alone, that was entirely dilapidated.
    - is_true 5y ago
      Do you have a source on that? Most of the money was used to pay the debt from Kirchner's government
      - ericol 5y ago
        > Most of the money was used to pay the debt from Kirchner's government Do _you_ have a source on _that_? Anyway, here's a source [1] for you. It says in the month before the elections, the central bank of Argentina sold over 4 billion dollars to keep the dollar rate at bay (2.7 billion _just_ in the week prior.. Between the "PASO" (Elections where all candidates can postulate, but only those that get over a certain % of votes do make it to the primaries) and the primaries, more than 20 billion dollars were sold in the internal market: > Desde las PASO las reservas cayeron USD 23.000 millones y los depósitos, unos USD 13.000 millones (Im' quoting the article here). Where is YOUR source. [1] https://www.infobae.com/economia/2019/10/31/el-banco-central-vendio-casi-usd-2700-millones-para-que-el-dolar-no-se-dispare-en-la-semana-previa-a-las-elecciones-2/ https://www.infobae.com/economia/2019/10/31/el-banco-central...
erikw 5y ago
I was hoping for an in depth historical treatment of Argentina's fall from the club of wealthy nations, but this article feels much more shallow. It's immediately clear that the author is neither an economist nor sociologist, and I would hazard to say has never lived in Argentina. While strictly true that the Macri administration's "neoliberal toolkit" failed, I feel like the article suggests that there is some inherent flaw in neoliberalism, whereas in reality Argentina is uniquely ungovernable. I'm reminded of the classic quote: "There are four types of nations- wealthy, poor, Japan, and Argentina". There is so much wealth in the county- you see these massive infrastructure projects everywhere: huge hydroelectric dams, well-constructed pristine highways in even the most remote parts of the country, beautiful parks... but for the most part, these projects are used to feed the corrupt state. The amount of corruption and bureaucracy is difficult to grasp as an outsider. I remember the first time I visited Chile by bus. At immigration before we got off the bus, they made an announcement that we should not try to bribe the Chilean police, as they wouldn't take kindly to it. They couched it in terms of the police being too proud to take a bribe, as though there were something abnormal about that. This illustrates the key sociological problem to me- beyond the normalization of bribery, there is a pervasive bureaucracy used for resource extraction by the political class, and I think it has too much momentum to end. To return briefly to the economic side and why I think a bit of neoliberalism would be a breath of fresh air, I'm reminded of when the government banned beef exports. They wanted to lower the price of beef, and thought they could do this by banning exports. I don't think it's uncharitable to say that any moron could predict how this would play out with a bit of thinking. Ranchers stopped raising unprofitable cattle, switched to soy (which the government then also raised export tariffs on) and other crops. Argentina is rife with this type of economic magical thinking, not just in the political elite, but in the popular classes they pander to. Argentina has been poor since the advent of Peronism, and yet the average person- perhaps like how a fish might not be aware of what "water" is- continues to support the same policies that continue not working 80 years later. In summary, I think that the author should take a more in depth look at the sociological and economic currents that make Argentina such a unique case of a poor country that by every right should be wealthy. Edit: I feel like the above comes off as too negative, so I want to add that Argentina is a great place to live, especially if you are a person of means, and not tied to the Argentine Peso. There are a lot of world class software developers in Buenos Aires, and apparently Argentina is one of the top spots to buy 0day exploits. The culture, food, weather (you can choose anywhere from arctic to tropical depending on your preferences) are all perfect for me- I just can't stand the bureaucracy and corruption.
rayiner 5y ago
As someone who comes from a very poor country, I feel like academics don’t do enough to help understand why some countries succeed and why some don’t. They blame “colonialism” or some such thing, but that doesn’t explain this. Argentina was rich in the early 20th century: > Something has gone awry in what was the most successful of all the 19th-century liberal republics in Spanish America. In the early 20th century, Argentina’s per capita GDP ranked among the world’s top ten, on a par with Australia and Canada and ahead of France and Italy. What explains the coups and political instability? If the GDP is the same, why is the government of Canada and Australia so much more stable than Argentina? This seems to be one of the biggest things holding back Latin America, but there seems to be no effort to understand what’s causing it.
- MrBuddyCasino 5y ago
  > I feel like academics don’t do enough to help understand why some countries succeed and why some don’t What have you read so far? Did you do any research? The field of philosophy and political science does not lack publications. I can recommend "The Rise and Decline of Nations" by Mancur Olson. Further authors which I still have to go through, but seem relevant: Theodore Dalrymple René Girard Roger Scruton James Burnham
  - whoaisme 5y ago
    LOl you're the guy being a dick about how in depth the field of fantasy novels is then your personal recommendation is Harry Potter. Why not become a snooty sommelier and recommend stella rosa while you're at it. Then you recommend writers you haven't read because get real if you're gonna actually read stuff before you talk about how much research there is hahaha
- gumby 5y ago
  > but there seems to be no effort to understand what’s causing it. I recommend "Why Nations Fail" by Acemoglu and Robinson, a thoughtful look at success/failure factors common across a number of countries. Unlike the implication of the title itself, it's not a "one grand theory" but a set of factors that incrementally tip the scales in one direction or the other. Sure, factors like colonialism certainly play a role, but terms like that are usually used as lazy tropes rather that thoughtful analysis. Acemoglu and Robinson don't focus on such broad factors except to the degree that they might encourage/discourage some more primary factors.
scythe 5y ago
>Argentina did not pledge allegiance to the US in the Second World War and was officially neutral. This is a weird way to put it. The US entered WW2 after more than two years of fighting. Did Stalin "pledge allegiance to the US"?
- kragen 5y ago
  Vice versa, if anything, since Stalin was already fighting the Germans.
- reactspa 5y ago
  The whole article reads like a propaganda piece. The first para throws shade on the Russian vaccine because someone who took it tested positive later. As if this doesn't happen with USA's vaccines. Later, we encounter western-journalism's gold standard phrase: "Many Argentinians welcomed...". What does many mean? Any number greater than 1.
- mandevil 5y ago
  For the record, the US entered WW2 after more than four years of fighting- Japan was the proximate cause of US entry, and they had been engaged in their horrifying, semi-demi-hemi genocidal war in China since the Marco Polo bridge incident of 1937, two years before Hitler stared anything serious in Europe. I suspect the authors point is that most countries in Central America were original members of the United Nations (signing the declaration in January 1942) and Brazil, Bolivia, Colombia, Chile, Paraguay, Peru, Ecuador, Uruguay and Venezuela all joined the war between 1943-5. Argentina was the last country in South America to join the war, at the end of March 1945- Hitler survived little more than a month of war with Argentina. And for those countries, it largely was about pressure from the US.
mothsonasloth 5y ago
I think the article was being disingenuous juxtapositioning that the president had the sputnik vaccine, then mentioning they got coronavirus. I'm sure the decision to use sputnik or moderna, Johnson etc. is not deterministic in getting COVID-19
- mrleinad 5y ago
  People that received Pfizer algo caught it, so yes, it's not a particularly insightful comment.
mgh2 5y ago
Two factors: Religion/culture and corruption https://m-g-h.medium.com/in-data-we-trust-2978dacc8c22 https://m-g-h.medium.com/in-data-we-trust-2978dacc8c22 PS: I grew up there
thescriptkiddie 5y ago
I suspect centuries of colonialism and a literal fascist dictatorship didn't help.
- HenryKissinger 5y ago
  South Korea was a fascist dictatorship until the 1980s and is now a global economic powerhouse. China has been a literal dictatorship for decades and is now the world's largest economy. It's probably not the dictatorship.
  - testrun 5y ago
    Interesting. Australia, Canada, Hong Kong, USA were all colonised. Now we can conclude it is not colonialism either.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]

59 points by Thevet 5y ago

> Speculators amass basic necessities and grocery stores were as empty if not emptier in December 2019 than any supermarkets in the UK at the height of the pandemic. I don't remember that.

ericol 5y ago
Me neither.
kragen 5y ago
Yeah, I don't remember supermarkets here in Argentina being particularly empty in December 02019. On the other hand, it's hardly unusual for supermarkets here to have a noticeable amount of empty shelf space, especially Chinese supermarkets off main streets on Sundays; maybe in the UK that's what they looked like at the height of the pandemic? I don't remember bars in Palermo being full of English-speakers at the time, either, just the occasional group. Overall, though, I feel like the article is mostly accurate.
- aunty_helen 5y ago
  I was one of those English-speakers clogging the bars in Dec-Jan. I can assure you that on a Friday night at Trova, there was enough people to clog the footpath and part of the road. However, the supermarkets seemed fine, not too expensive and reasonably well stocked. More concerningly the blue rate went from 60s to 75+ while I was there. And the withrawl taxes added to the atms at the time (2k for 2.3k)
  - kragen 5y ago
    I went to bars there too, and yeah, there were lots of people, but the ones I saw were always mostly speaking Spanish. Or Portuguese. Maybe I didn't go at the right (wrong?) time.
- robocat 5y ago
  > 02019 why not write that as 0002019 or 000002019?
mrleinad 5y ago
Yeah, that didn't happen.

bishoprook2 5y ago

wow, does that article not deliver on the title.

telesilla 5y ago

I visited around 10 years ago and found it to be a truly interesting country, though indeed mired in recent controversy and historical bloodshed and all the political to-and-fro discussed in the article, but also full of delights and fascinating people and strong cultural elements (grilled meat! Late night dancing!), a clear cross between old Europe and the new world, more than any other perhaps. My anecdote on the finance system: the local street market had signs posted by the local government that mandated prices-in order to curb inflation. That was a first for me, seeing vendors unable to set their own prices.

mc32 5y ago
There’s something sick about their economy. Quite a few economic dynamos emerged from the legacy of bloodshed and dictatorships. Argentina has natural resources. It has institutions. But perhaps it lacks vision and the will to carry out that vision.
- ericol 5y ago
  We have a very crooked political caste. I'm giving this as an example; I don't want to get into a political discussion. But in the last government alone, we received around 50 billion dollars from the FMI also alone, that was entirely dilapidated.
  - is_true 5y ago
    Do you have a source on that? Most of the money was used to pay the debt from Kirchner's government
    - ericol 5y ago
      > Most of the money was used to pay the debt from Kirchner's government Do _you_ have a source on _that_? Anyway, here's a source [1] for you. It says in the month before the elections, the central bank of Argentina sold over 4 billion dollars to keep the dollar rate at bay (2.7 billion _just_ in the week prior.. Between the "PASO" (Elections where all candidates can postulate, but only those that get over a certain % of votes do make it to the primaries) and the primaries, more than 20 billion dollars were sold in the internal market: > Desde las PASO las reservas cayeron USD 23.000 millones y los depósitos, unos USD 13.000 millones (Im' quoting the article here). Where is YOUR source. [1] https://www.infobae.com/economia/2019/10/31/el-banco-central-vendio-casi-usd-2700-millones-para-que-el-dolar-no-se-dispare-en-la-semana-previa-a-las-elecciones-2/ https://www.infobae.com/economia/2019/10/31/el-banco-central...

erikw 5y ago

I was hoping for an in depth historical treatment of Argentina's fall from the club of wealthy nations, but this article feels much more shallow. It's immediately clear that the author is neither an economist nor sociologist, and I would hazard to say has never lived in Argentina. While strictly true that the Macri administration's "neoliberal toolkit" failed, I feel like the article suggests that there is some inherent flaw in neoliberalism, whereas in reality Argentina is uniquely ungovernable. I'm reminded of the classic quote: "There are four types of nations- wealthy, poor, Japan, and Argentina". There is so much wealth in the county- you see these massive infrastructure projects everywhere: huge hydroelectric dams, well-constructed pristine highways in even the most remote parts of the country, beautiful parks... but for the most part, these projects are used to feed the corrupt state. The amount of corruption and bureaucracy is difficult to grasp as an outsider. I remember the first time I visited Chile by bus. At immigration before we got off the bus, they made an announcement that we should not try to bribe the Chilean police, as they wouldn't take kindly to it. They couched it in terms of the police being too proud to take a bribe, as though there were something abnormal about that. This illustrates the key sociological problem to me- beyond the normalization of bribery, there is a pervasive bureaucracy used for resource extraction by the political class, and I think it has too much momentum to end. To return briefly to the economic side and why I think a bit of neoliberalism would be a breath of fresh air, I'm reminded of when the government banned beef exports. They wanted to lower the price of beef, and thought they could do this by banning exports. I don't think it's uncharitable to say that any moron could predict how this would play out with a bit of thinking. Ranchers stopped raising unprofitable cattle, switched to soy (which the government then also raised export tariffs on) and other crops. Argentina is rife with this type of economic magical thinking, not just in the political elite, but in the popular classes they pander to. Argentina has been poor since the advent of Peronism, and yet the average person- perhaps like how a fish might not be aware of what "water" is- continues to support the same policies that continue not working 80 years later. In summary, I think that the author should take a more in depth look at the sociological and economic currents that make Argentina such a unique case of a poor country that by every right should be wealthy. Edit: I feel like the above comes off as too negative, so I want to add that Argentina is a great place to live, especially if you are a person of means, and not tied to the Argentine Peso. There are a lot of world class software developers in Buenos Aires, and apparently Argentina is one of the top spots to buy 0day exploits. The culture, food, weather (you can choose anywhere from arctic to tropical depending on your preferences) are all perfect for me- I just can't stand the bureaucracy and corruption.

rayiner 5y ago

As someone who comes from a very poor country, I feel like academics don’t do enough to help understand why some countries succeed and why some don’t. They blame “colonialism” or some such thing, but that doesn’t explain this. Argentina was rich in the early 20th century: > Something has gone awry in what was the most successful of all the 19th-century liberal republics in Spanish America. In the early 20th century, Argentina’s per capita GDP ranked among the world’s top ten, on a par with Australia and Canada and ahead of France and Italy. What explains the coups and political instability? If the GDP is the same, why is the government of Canada and Australia so much more stable than Argentina? This seems to be one of the biggest things holding back Latin America, but there seems to be no effort to understand what’s causing it.

MrBuddyCasino 5y ago
> I feel like academics don’t do enough to help understand why some countries succeed and why some don’t What have you read so far? Did you do any research? The field of philosophy and political science does not lack publications. I can recommend "The Rise and Decline of Nations" by Mancur Olson. Further authors which I still have to go through, but seem relevant: Theodore Dalrymple René Girard Roger Scruton James Burnham
- whoaisme 5y ago
  LOl you're the guy being a dick about how in depth the field of fantasy novels is then your personal recommendation is Harry Potter. Why not become a snooty sommelier and recommend stella rosa while you're at it. Then you recommend writers you haven't read because get real if you're gonna actually read stuff before you talk about how much research there is hahaha
gumby 5y ago
> but there seems to be no effort to understand what’s causing it. I recommend "Why Nations Fail" by Acemoglu and Robinson, a thoughtful look at success/failure factors common across a number of countries. Unlike the implication of the title itself, it's not a "one grand theory" but a set of factors that incrementally tip the scales in one direction or the other. Sure, factors like colonialism certainly play a role, but terms like that are usually used as lazy tropes rather that thoughtful analysis. Acemoglu and Robinson don't focus on such broad factors except to the degree that they might encourage/discourage some more primary factors.

scythe 5y ago

>Argentina did not pledge allegiance to the US in the Second World War and was officially neutral. This is a weird way to put it. The US entered WW2 after more than two years of fighting. Did Stalin "pledge allegiance to the US"?

kragen 5y ago
Vice versa, if anything, since Stalin was already fighting the Germans.
reactspa 5y ago
The whole article reads like a propaganda piece. The first para throws shade on the Russian vaccine because someone who took it tested positive later. As if this doesn't happen with USA's vaccines. Later, we encounter western-journalism's gold standard phrase: "Many Argentinians welcomed...". What does many mean? Any number greater than 1.
mandevil 5y ago
For the record, the US entered WW2 after more than four years of fighting- Japan was the proximate cause of US entry, and they had been engaged in their horrifying, semi-demi-hemi genocidal war in China since the Marco Polo bridge incident of 1937, two years before Hitler stared anything serious in Europe. I suspect the authors point is that most countries in Central America were original members of the United Nations (signing the declaration in January 1942) and Brazil, Bolivia, Colombia, Chile, Paraguay, Peru, Ecuador, Uruguay and Venezuela all joined the war between 1943-5. Argentina was the last country in South America to join the war, at the end of March 1945- Hitler survived little more than a month of war with Argentina. And for those countries, it largely was about pressure from the US.

mothsonasloth 5y ago

I think the article was being disingenuous juxtapositioning that the president had the sputnik vaccine, then mentioning they got coronavirus. I'm sure the decision to use sputnik or moderna, Johnson etc. is not deterministic in getting COVID-19

mrleinad 5y ago
People that received Pfizer algo caught it, so yes, it's not a particularly insightful comment.

mgh2 5y ago

Two factors: Religion/culture and corruption https://m-g-h.medium.com/in-data-we-trust-2978dacc8c22 https://m-g-h.medium.com/in-data-we-trust-2978dacc8c22 PS: I grew up there

thescriptkiddie 5y ago

I suspect centuries of colonialism and a literal fascist dictatorship didn't help.

HenryKissinger 5y ago
South Korea was a fascist dictatorship until the 1980s and is now a global economic powerhouse. China has been a literal dictatorship for decades and is now the world's largest economy. It's probably not the dictatorship.
- testrun 5y ago
  Interesting. Australia, Canada, Hong Kong, USA were all colonised. Now we can conclude it is not colonialism either.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]