Argentines American dream goes sour

[sergio]

No it did NOT affect only the rich. I know plenty of middle class people who were SERIOUSLY affected. People who had their life savings lost. One friend and his wife, elderly people, took the government to court and won. They had to pay a lawyer and recovered about 80%. The rest went into bonds that they will never see. The loss of that money was a crisis for them and they really suffered with anxiety and worry. They are NOT rich. They were very middle class people who have to be careful with money. There were lots of others like that. The TRULY rich only lost a little, if any, money. They had their money outside of Argentina or protected in ways that the government could not touch.

I might add that foreign banks like Citibank went along with the conversion scheme. They made no attempt to protect their clients savings. Of course they did not legally have to. Where do you get ideas like this - that just the rich were affected? Did you live here at the time? And as for it being the "right" thing to do. How do you justify that? Since when is a person's bank account, denominated in dollars precisely as a precaution, subject to the whims of the government? That is a fair policy?

 

[ElQueso]

This is another statement showing that you have no idea what you are talking about. The K's never stole anything from anyone, what I assume you are referring to is when they changed all the DOLLAR accounts and converted them into PESOS when the crisis hit, this only affected the very rich people in Argentina and it was the right thing to do, just look how this dirty money was made in the first place.

Interesting. So when it was legal to have money in US dollars in an account here, and many citizens had exactly that, and the government just willy-nilly confiscated 2/3 of that money by changing the laws overnight - you really think it was ONLY THE RICH involved?

My barber was involved. He was a barber then. He doesn't strike me as a rich man now and he wasn't then, according to him.

However, he bought a house, actually got a mortgage, and was paying his mortgage from his dollar account when all this went down. He lost 2/3 of his LIFE'S SAVINGS in one night. His mortgage nearly tripled in price and he couldn't pay it any more so he lost his house as well.

His money, like most people who had money in dollars here at the time, was NOT gotten from dirty means.

Yeah, right, only the rich.

And besides, those evil rich, they can afford to lose their money, right? Who pays the wages of the middle class and poor folk? Monetary redistribution is NEVER JUST - the very people who redistribute the wealth are the ones who pocket most of it, and the rest they use to pay off their cronies.

And when people talk about "unfettered capitalism" - that's just a name and it sounds good until you start looking at real history and realize that there has never been "unfettered capitalism." Almost always issues where the rich end up really screwing over the poor (like in Argentina, and the US in the 1800s and early 1900s) were brought about because of corruption in the government that allowed the rich to get away with things they shouldn't have been allowed to get away with!

 

[ElQueso]

And BTW - one of my programmers was a very unhappy man when his private pension fund was confiscated by the government. Yeah, the Kirchners are dreamboats and make all their people happy.

 

[Quentin.Daniels]

?

?

Before i respond to both of your posts I would like you to explain why YOU think the government did this conversion of currency. And do you actually know what the real reason was for this?

 

[Quentin.Daniels]

No it did NOT affect only the rich. I know plenty of middle class people who were SERIOUSLY affected. People who had their life savings lost. One friend and his wife, elderly people, took the government to court and won. They had to pay a lawyer and recovered about 80%. The rest went into bonds that they will never see. The loss of that money was a crisis for them and they really suffered with anxiety and worry. They are NOT rich. They were very middle class people who have to be careful with money. There were lots of others like that. the TRULY rich only lost a little, if any, money. They had their money outside of Argentina or protected in ways that the government could not touch.

This post is based on heresay, I hear bitching argies all the time lying about how the government stole their money out of their bank accounts. You are right about the truly rich since they kept their money in Uruguay.

I might add that foreign banks like Citibank went along with the conversion scheme. They made no attempt to protect their clients savings. Of course they did not legally have to. Where do you get ideas like this - that just the rich were affected? Did you live here at the time? And as for it being the "right" thing to do. How do you justify that? Since when is a person's bank account, denominated in dollars precisely as a precaution, subject to the whims of the government? That is a fair policy?

It was voted on, justified and it was legal as it would be in any democracy.

Interesting. So when it was legal to have money in US dollars in an account here, and many citizens had exactly that, and the government just willy-nilly confiscated 2/3 of that money by changing the laws overnight - you really think it was ONLY THE RICH involved?

My barber was involved. He was a barber then. He doesn't strike me as a rich man now and he wasn't then, according to him.

However, he bought a house, actually got a mortgage, and was paying his mortgage from his dollar account when all this went down. He lost 2/3 of his LIFE'S SAVINGS in one night. His mortgage nearly tripled in price and he couldn't pay it any more so he lost his house as well.

His money, like most people who had money in dollars here at the time, was NOT gotten from dirty means.

Yeah, right, only the rich.

And besides, those evil rich, they can afford to lose their money, right? Who pays the wages of the middle class and poor folk? Monetary redistribution is NEVER JUST - the very people who redistribute the wealth are the ones who pocket most of it, and the rest they use to pay off their cronies.

And when people talk about "unfettered capitalism" - that's just a name and it sounds good until you start looking at real history and realize that there has never been "unfettered capitalism." Almost always issues where the rich end up really screwing over the poor (like in Argentina, and the US in the 1800s and early 1900s) were brought about because of corruption in the government that allowed the rich to get away with things they shouldn't have been allowed to get away with!

This post is based on heresay again, neither one of you are stating any verifiable facts. The government didn't confiscate anything from anyone they simply did a currency conversion.

And BTW - one of my programmers was a very unhappy man when his private pension fund was confiscated by the government. Yeah, the Kirchners are dreamboats and make all their people happy.

They did not confiscate any pension funds they nationalized them.
No government makes all their people happy.
And yes it did only affect the small percentage of rich argies that had dollar savings account. The only thing I cant verify is that it was dirty money so I will take that back. I also knew that you two would not respond to my post asking you why the government did this currency conversion, because you are only posting stories without any verifiable facts that you have heard from argies that don't like the K's.

 

[SaraSara]

My daughter, a schoolteacher, lost 2/3 of her savings when the government changed the laws overnight, after going on record saying that dollar deposits were absolutely safe.

But I imagine Quentin.Daniels will say that this, too, is hearsay.

For Mr. Daniels' information, it was President Duhalde, not Kirchner, who dropped the peso/dollar parity that made 2/3 of dollar savings evaporate.

 

[TheJag]

This post is based on heresay,

This post is based on heresay again,

Please do not use heresay ouside of the context of a witness bringing direct testimony in a trial.

According to your usage all journalism, and most books outside of autobiographical would fall under your usage.

You are clearly not ready to debate things in an adult, and logical manner.

 

[Quentin.Daniels]

My own daughter, a schooteacher, lost 2/3 of her savings when the government changed the laws overnight, after going on record saying that dollar deposits were absolutely safe.

But I imagine Quentin.Daniels will say that this, too, is hearsay.

For Mr. Daniels' information, it was President Duhalde, not Kirchner, who dropped the peso/dollar parity that made 2/3 of dollar savings evaporate.

be careful not to talk to people who have seen their lifetime savings vanish, expropriated by the K's in their effort to stay in power.

So what ARE you referring to in this post?

 

[SaraSara]

So what ARE you referring to in this post?

The expropriation of the retirement pension funds, done by the Kirchners.

 

[Quentin.Daniels]

Please do not use heresay ouside of the context of a witness bringing direct testimony in a trial.

According to your usage all journalism, and most books outside of autobiographical would fall under your usage.

You are clearly not ready to debate things in an adult, and logical manner.

I am sure you have noticed that English is not my mother-tongue by reading my posts, but I still think this word works with what I am trying to say.
http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Heresay

hearsay n. 1) second-hand evidence in which the witness is not telling what he/she knows personally, but what others have said to him/her.