Recent content by LuckyLuke

Milei cares about salary priced in dollars. The people care about salary priced in local purchasing power. Argentina, like many other countries right now, is experiencing an affordability crisis. Milei acted quickly to accomplish his mandate, but he overcompensated. Even just a modicum of...

You lost me. A more favorable USD rate will reduce costs for expats earning in dollars. This economy divorced itself a long time ago from pricing items against the blue-rate, as evidenced by an IPC far in excess of dollar appreciation.

Excellent point. When you see these sensational headlines politicians throw around like the new natural gas port in Golfo San Matías that will produce 20,000 jobs, this is just for the initial construction phase. Where it does create jobs is in peripheral towns that need to supply workers during...

IMO, the short answer is no. I live in Neuquen, the oil sector is a small ecosystem. You have major companies and then dozens of smaller "service" companies around it. Everything from piping, catering, trailer maintenance, employee transportation, trucking, fracking raw materials (sand), etc...

My wife & I moved from out of Los Angeles in 2019 and I keep telling her how much the prices here now remind me of that era. It's incredible how fast the dollar has lost purchasing power down here. The good news is that medical insurance covers dental here unlike the USA where teeth are...

De La Rua resigned from a full blown currency crisis and state sanctioned robbery of private savings. That has nothing to do with today's economic reform where we have a stable dollar rate and largely dismantled CEPO. What support Milei has lost through economic malaise he has gained by the...

The government is complicit -- 100% in what is occurring. Imagine you, an ordinary citizen, is still reeling from 211% annual inflation during Alberto's final year. Then comes Milei and he almost immediately does the following: Devalues the currency by 40% to address the "atraso cambiario"...

Howdy Frank, I appreciate your response. Neither architect on the team knew about any such limit here and claimed the penalties are not published anywhere. The planos department said either architect could have easily stopped by and simply asked in person. It was an enormous disappointment. We...

I recently had the misfortune of submitting blueprints for a rental property I purchased a few years back only to be told that it was "overbuilt" for the size of the lot and to kindly remit $11,361,000 in penalties. The architect was speechless. I was given the option of paying it in 12 monthly...

Came to say this as well, wait time is another criterion that people pay private to "skip to the front of the line" when they feel their life may depend on it or if it reduces suffering time. That doesn't speak of quality of care per se, but rather quantity of people sharing the same resource...

I'm a daily coffee drinker. I have an espresso machine at home and I buy La Virginia Espresso - pre-ground from the local mayorista. Call me a sinner, but saving money tastes pretty delicious to me too. It's my personal opinion that while Argentinians have 20 different brands of Mate to buy, the...

This statement doesn't make a lot of sense to me. The only ways that I know a health service is paid for is the following: 1) Particular - out of pocket 2) Obra Social - (Monotributista/employee) (deducted from your monthly taxes) 3) Prepaga - (Paid as health insurance premiums) In all of the...

https://www.clarin.com/sociedad/90-atencion-extranjeros-hospitales-publicos-unica-provincia-argentina-cobra-internarse_0_veOgmUby8f.html

What's not spoken here is the restaurant industry's highest margin menu items are pizza, pasta and fried appetizers (i.e. breaded). Starches aka "fillers" make a lot of restaurant dishes economical. Ever seen the price difference between a sashimi plate and a sushi roll? Driving around...

Any inflation index is based on a static measurement of currency. In Argentina the "IPC" tracks what 1 peso buys today vs tomorrow. In the USA the CPI tracks what 1 USD buys today vs tomorrow. The problem with Expats is that they are trying to apply a dynamic measurement of currency...