Are The Price Increases Affecting You?

[EdRooney]

Are their any jobs available in your esteemed enterprise, ma'am?

Don't do it Fifs! He'll just blow it all on roids.

 

[PhilipDT]

Do any of you work with your respective unions to collectively demand better pay increases?

The Argentine economy has a structural inflation problem

Hey look, more may day irony.

 

[Joe]

Don't do it Fifs! He'll just blow it all on roids.

On the other hand, all the young ladies in the office would get help with their iPhone payments.

 

[fifs2]

Sleslie No I absolutely don't believe what you suffered was fair. I probably am the worst business person in history as I have a personal dislike for entrepreneurs who isolate their personal assets as per the myriad of accounting options open for same whilst they screw their employees for their duly earned salary. We have previously been burned by unscrupulous employees suing without cause but we have such a high sense of propriety led by Argentinean staff (and not us) that our legal issues have decreased over the years which is a blessing. I/we do this because we are good people, we genuinely love many of the employees like family and I believe one day we will have to account for our credits and liabilities in life.I am absolutely sure other expats operate the same, especially citygirl and others of a similar mindset.

 

[ARbound]

I sold all my electronics and I only shop at Dia but even that is getting expensive.

My building fees went up by $100.00 this month and even though I earn my pay in pesos
And have a dni I can't get a credit card so No quotas for me. The raise the union got us
At work was a pathetic 36% I think, which means after the devaluation a couple months ago
And the inflation rate on track to hit at least 50% I'm going to have lost around 34% in income
By years end.

The only eating out I can afford is a pizza or McDonalds and I've never been to a restaurant in Buenos Aires.
I don't own a car thankfully.

The price control stuff is nothing I buy except the hot dogs, but all the stores have stopped carrying the
6 packs because people have figured 2 or 4 of them are still cheaper

I only eat lunch and dinner though when possible I skip one to make food and or money last longer.
I eat about 11 meals a week compared to the 21 you should.

I also haven't bought any clothes since moving here so I wear the old ones that are ruined even, and I
Need new shoes but ones my size cost $700+

The sad part is compared to many Argentines my salary isn't terrible.

 

[nlaruccia]

I think the questions should be "who are the price increases NOT affecting". It's like swimming against the current in the Colorado River. No matter how little you spend, save, and hide under the mattress it's never enough. It's a losing battle.

 

[nlaruccia]

I think it's ridiculous to pay $80 pesos for kitty litter. I told the vet, I'm not paying that much for pebbles for my cat to crap in. It's more expensive than toilet paper for humans to crap in.

 

[EdRooney]

A few months back I went to buy grapefruits and the greengrocer saw me hesitate at the exorbitant price and says "isn't the inflation just awful?" shaking his head. Meanwhile said greengrocer now has purchased a new Audi.

We all complain about the inflation, but it all goes somewhere...

 

[PhilipDT]

I am not happy to see inflation here, but I prefer it to the alternatives. Every 'anti-inflationary' plan I have seen for Argentina would entail cutting social services and raising unemployment (the usual IMF recipe). If you have a plan that won't drag us back to the 90's please do share.

I agree with Possum that I would like to see less subsidies to CFK's multinational corporate welfare hogs (eg, Chevron, Monsanto). Any tax cuts would need to be prevented from 'trickling up.'

Has the accelerating inflation in the last couple years years corresponded to a quicker reduction in unemployment? NO! Even the near worthless official statistics back that up.

I think a lot of people would prefer moderate inflation with and lower unemployment to low inflation and higher unemployment. The problem is 30% and increasing is not what most people would consider moderate. That is destabilizing inflation and destabilizing inflation does lower unemployment, it mainly just screws the middle class.

Personally, inflation means I have higher overhead, and thus raise my rates. I assume all businesses selling in Argentina do the same. I don't see why it is unreasonable for employees to expect their wages to be raised accordingly. That's not generosity, it's just good business sense.

Yes but Argentina isn't a closed economy and so when you add in heavily controlled exchange rate you get this problem: Let's say you sell dulce de leche to grocery stores in the US for $100 a gallon. On Jan 1st 2003 you would have gotten 336 pesos per gallon with which you would pay your overhead. If dulce de leche increased in price at the same rate as overall inflation in the US, on Jan 1st 2012 you would be able to charge USD 124 for the gallon of dulce de leche aka 533 pesos. Thats 58% more money with which you can pay your employees and buy your milk etc, too bad your costs have gone up 163%. Guess you don't have enough money to pay your employees a living wage.

 

[citygirl]

When I managed the company here, 20% was a standard increase + performance bonuses. The problem is at some point, you can't continue to justify that kind of cost increase (esp for a multi-national). I had knock down drag out fights with the US parent company to get those raises and I can't say the employees were even happy about it. It wasn't a pretty time and one of the reasons the company decided not to expand her and sunset the employees - it was swimming upstream trying to do business and it was more expensive here than any of our other int'l programs. Which would perhaps have been tolerable except you had all the corp taxes on top + the 283839493 feriados a year so it just wasn't the best.

I think employees should get raises - absolutely - but it's also important to understand that at some point, the piper needs to get paid. Employers are getting squeezed from the employees, from their suppliers, from the client who wants costs reduced or at least more stable - it's a no win at some point.

Thought of another one - I make all my own pizza now. But that's generally b/c I don't like pizza here, ESP where I live (inedible) so it's easier/cheaper/tastier to do it myself.

I haven't bought clothes here in a very, very long time.