7 ms·

Big Mac Prices Just Went Up 26% in Argentina

40 points by mattobrien 14y ago

heyrhett 14y ago
I love that the Argentinian government was worrying about their (mostly) tongue-in-cheek ranking in the Economist's big-mac index. It makes me feel like they're run by the Bluths from Arrested Development or something.
mayneack 14y ago
I guess this will make the "big mac index" go up an insane amount this year instead of "slowly" over several years.
- callmeed 14y ago
  It's a burger bubble. You don't want to be around when it pops.
  - molmalo 14y ago
    The biggest burger bubbles I've ever seen are in Mc Donnald's ads. But then... you see their thin burger patty's (at least here) and that bubble plops. Lol!
lipponlabang 14y ago
Who in their right mind eats a Big Mac anyway? They're disgusting.
- Codhisattva 14y ago
  I can't figure out how this story made it to HN.
  - deleted 14y ago
    [deleted]
- sliverstorm 14y ago
  What, you've never been a thousand miles from home at 11PM and starving?
jstalin 14y ago
Argentina is the very definition of economic schizophrenia. People are put in jail for reporting the actual inflation rate (instead of the "official" inflation rate). The Economist magazine recently published a story that they are no longer going to lie to their readers and report the official rate and instead will report unofficial, private estimates. Argentina's real inflation rate has been running at about 25% per year.
- dguaraglia 14y ago
  Sorry, I happen to be living temporarily in Argentina (after growing up here, moving abroad for almost a decade) and, while surely the government numbers are made up, I don't recall anyone sent to jail for reporting a different number. If you have links to the piece of news, I'll be more than glad to see them. If you have not, then please stop making shit up.
  - wslh 14y ago
    A threat is different? http://www.elsurhoy.com.ar/index.php/component/plugins/system/jceutilities/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=3533&Itemid=1 http://www.elsurhoy.com.ar/index.php/component/plugins/syste... I don't think it is very different in this case
    - dguaraglia 14y ago
      An empty threat, yeah. As scary as it is (and, admittedly, this is a government that is known to push buttons and pull threads whenever it wants something done, whether good or bad) it'd still be unconstitutional. That's exactly why they didn't stop publishing those figures. Also, you have to understand something about Argentine politics right now: it's a very polarized country, with two massive interest groups trying to take control of it. I'm not saying the government figures are real, most probably they aren't, but I'm very doubtful of these other claims, specially when these 'think tanks' don't really specify what they are measuring. This is a horrible game these two interests groups are playing, with everyone standing to lose except a few fuckers on top.
wslh 14y ago
This is just because the index (big mac) was artificially low and McDonalds needed a real upgrade
- wslh 14y ago
  This was incredible downvoted, I didn't post an opinion but an assertion of what happened with the index.
- pshc 14y ago
  I was just in Hong Kong and the Big Mac there is noticeably cheaper than every other meal at McDonald's. I was wondering if it might be to manipulate the index?
planetguy 14y ago
The Big Mac index as of January: http://www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail/2012/01/daily-chart-3 http://www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail/2012/01/daily-c... Argentina was already close to the top, with a Big Mac going for $US4.94, not entirely crazy by any means. (On the other hand, given that you can get a full three-course steak dinner with wine in a nice restaurant for $US20 in Argentina I wonder who is eating these Big Macs). A 25% increase will take it up to something like $6.25, a little above Sweden. The fact that the official exchange rate is 4.2 pesos to the dollar but Argentinians are willing to give you at least five pesos to the dollar in informal exchanges seems like a pretty bad sign. The other interesting thing about that Big Mac index is that Argentina is one of the world's largest beef producers. So are Uruguay, Brazil and Australia, all clustered up there in overpriced burger land.
- dguaraglia 14y ago
  McDonalds (and other burger chains for that matter) has always been extremely expensive in Argentina, even during the 'golden age' of Carlos Menem (golden age from the American/globalized/free-market perspective). For the same money you could eat a McDonalds burger you can eat a 3 course lunch menu in Puerto Madero (one of Buenos Aires nicest parts). But... kids love brands. That's why you see suckers using MacBook Pros to browse Facebook in the big malls, even when they cost about 3x what they cost in the US. Go figure. Maybe advertising works?
  - molmalo 14y ago
    > That's why you see suckers using MacBook Pros to browse Facebook in the big malls, even when they cost about 3x what they cost in the US Exactly, it just seems so incredibly dumb from the government to block or put VERY high taxes to imported products that WILL NEVER be produced here (they make them in Brazil, to cover the whole region, they will not start to produce them in an adjacent country). They're begging for contraband. And I bet that a nice percentage of those boys who you see, using those MacBook Pros bought them from someone who sold it without paying the proper taxes...
- planetguy 14y ago
  Actually, I apologize for replying to myself, but I couldn't resist going off and coming up with some numbers. There's a pretty darn strong and unexpected correlation between the price of a Big Mac and the number of cows per head population. I could only get good cows-per-person numbers for the big beef producers, but here goes: Country Cows per person Big Mac Price Australia 1.28 $4.94 Argentina 1.26 $4.64 Brazil 1.07 $5.68 Colombia 0.59 $4.54 USA 0.31 $4.20 Mexico 0.29 $2.70 Pakistan 0.18 $2.89 Russia 0.15 $2.55 India 0.15 $1.62 China 0.06 $2.44 So there ya go, the more plentiful cows are the more it costs to get one cut up and put on a bun. (Or, perhaps, the more you can sell your beef for, the more likely you are to be a cattle rancher.)
spiredigital 14y ago
Wow. Did anyone else read this and think: 'I wonder why the 27" iMacs are more expensive in Argentina?" Nope? No one? I guess if you can't spot the sucker....

40 points by mattobrien 14y ago

I love that the Argentinian government was worrying about their (mostly) tongue-in-cheek ranking in the Economist's big-mac index. It makes me feel like they're run by the Bluths from Arrested Development or something.

mayneack 14y ago

I guess this will make the "big mac index" go up an insane amount this year instead of "slowly" over several years.

callmeed 14y ago
It's a burger bubble. You don't want to be around when it pops.
- molmalo 14y ago
  The biggest burger bubbles I've ever seen are in Mc Donnald's ads. But then... you see their thin burger patty's (at least here) and that bubble plops. Lol!

lipponlabang 14y ago

Who in their right mind eats a Big Mac anyway? They're disgusting.

Codhisattva 14y ago
I can't figure out how this story made it to HN.
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
sliverstorm 14y ago
What, you've never been a thousand miles from home at 11PM and starving?

jstalin 14y ago

Argentina is the very definition of economic schizophrenia. People are put in jail for reporting the actual inflation rate (instead of the "official" inflation rate). The Economist magazine recently published a story that they are no longer going to lie to their readers and report the official rate and instead will report unofficial, private estimates. Argentina's real inflation rate has been running at about 25% per year.

dguaraglia 14y ago
Sorry, I happen to be living temporarily in Argentina (after growing up here, moving abroad for almost a decade) and, while surely the government numbers are made up, I don't recall anyone sent to jail for reporting a different number. If you have links to the piece of news, I'll be more than glad to see them. If you have not, then please stop making shit up.
- wslh 14y ago
  A threat is different? http://www.elsurhoy.com.ar/index.php/component/plugins/system/jceutilities/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=3533&Itemid=1 http://www.elsurhoy.com.ar/index.php/component/plugins/syste... I don't think it is very different in this case
  - dguaraglia 14y ago
    An empty threat, yeah. As scary as it is (and, admittedly, this is a government that is known to push buttons and pull threads whenever it wants something done, whether good or bad) it'd still be unconstitutional. That's exactly why they didn't stop publishing those figures. Also, you have to understand something about Argentine politics right now: it's a very polarized country, with two massive interest groups trying to take control of it. I'm not saying the government figures are real, most probably they aren't, but I'm very doubtful of these other claims, specially when these 'think tanks' don't really specify what they are measuring. This is a horrible game these two interests groups are playing, with everyone standing to lose except a few fuckers on top.

wslh 14y ago

This is just because the index (big mac) was artificially low and McDonalds needed a real upgrade

wslh 14y ago
This was incredible downvoted, I didn't post an opinion but an assertion of what happened with the index.
pshc 14y ago
I was just in Hong Kong and the Big Mac there is noticeably cheaper than every other meal at McDonald's. I was wondering if it might be to manipulate the index?

planetguy 14y ago

The Big Mac index as of January: http://www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail/2012/01/daily-chart-3 http://www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail/2012/01/daily-c... Argentina was already close to the top, with a Big Mac going for $US4.94, not entirely crazy by any means. (On the other hand, given that you can get a full three-course steak dinner with wine in a nice restaurant for $US20 in Argentina I wonder who is eating these Big Macs). A 25% increase will take it up to something like $6.25, a little above Sweden. The fact that the official exchange rate is 4.2 pesos to the dollar but Argentinians are willing to give you at least five pesos to the dollar in informal exchanges seems like a pretty bad sign. The other interesting thing about that Big Mac index is that Argentina is one of the world's largest beef producers. So are Uruguay, Brazil and Australia, all clustered up there in overpriced burger land.

dguaraglia 14y ago
McDonalds (and other burger chains for that matter) has always been extremely expensive in Argentina, even during the 'golden age' of Carlos Menem (golden age from the American/globalized/free-market perspective). For the same money you could eat a McDonalds burger you can eat a 3 course lunch menu in Puerto Madero (one of Buenos Aires nicest parts). But... kids love brands. That's why you see suckers using MacBook Pros to browse Facebook in the big malls, even when they cost about 3x what they cost in the US. Go figure. Maybe advertising works?
- molmalo 14y ago
  > That's why you see suckers using MacBook Pros to browse Facebook in the big malls, even when they cost about 3x what they cost in the US Exactly, it just seems so incredibly dumb from the government to block or put VERY high taxes to imported products that WILL NEVER be produced here (they make them in Brazil, to cover the whole region, they will not start to produce them in an adjacent country). They're begging for contraband. And I bet that a nice percentage of those boys who you see, using those MacBook Pros bought them from someone who sold it without paying the proper taxes...
planetguy 14y ago
Actually, I apologize for replying to myself, but I couldn't resist going off and coming up with some numbers. There's a pretty darn strong and unexpected correlation between the price of a Big Mac and the number of cows per head population. I could only get good cows-per-person numbers for the big beef producers, but here goes: Country Cows per person Big Mac Price Australia 1.28 $4.94 Argentina 1.26 $4.64 Brazil 1.07 $5.68 Colombia 0.59 $4.54 USA 0.31 $4.20 Mexico 0.29 $2.70 Pakistan 0.18 $2.89 Russia 0.15 $2.55 India 0.15 $1.62 China 0.06 $2.44 So there ya go, the more plentiful cows are the more it costs to get one cut up and put on a bun. (Or, perhaps, the more you can sell your beef for, the more likely you are to be a cattle rancher.)

spiredigital 14y ago

Wow. Did anyone else read this and think: 'I wonder why the 27" iMacs are more expensive in Argentina?" Nope? No one? I guess if you can't spot the sucker....