Hi. Recently arrived from UK and have seen some petty crime already: young man who was very dirty and clearly very hungry stole a large sandwich from a panaderia very near the centre just off Av. Cordoba. The shopkeeper made a token chase shouting usual abuse ("puto" etc) but not seriously - the young man eating the sandwich as he ran, looking over his shoulder. No one else was much bothered. Usual shrug and "chorros". I don't see many more beggars than usual around subte etc but I suspect that out in the barrios on edge of town things are grim. So yes, BA is still remarkably safe for the intelligent traveller. As a friend noted, "Argentina usually has a lull before the storm": everyone is pretty passive in the face of Macrismo inflation but we would probably be sensible to recognise that suppressed desperation is out there and apparent even on a subte ride down to Constitucion. What would we do if we had five or six hungry children and absolutely no money? Very good advice offered above.
Coming to BA this Dec/Jan - some questions!
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Stantucker
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Some of that protest and "desperation" is purely political, some is real. Never forget the political angle in Argentina. If a peronist govt was in power, there would not be so many protest, regardless of how many hungry people were out there. I have seen so many more articles critical of Macri in Clarín and La Nación than you would ever see critical of Cristina in C5N or Pagina12. There are always two sides to the story.
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Stantucker
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I have almost never, ever heard Cristina critized in C5N and Pagina12. I mention that to say that if you get your news about Argentina only from those media, it would be like listening only to Fox News in the US to know what is going on there. And before some of you even start, I am not supporting Macri's handling of the economy, far from it, only saying you have to look at the entire picture when it comes to things like protests.
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This is an empirical question I guess: we would have to base a conclusion on tabulation of articles etc about the parties, rather than our impressions. We cannot state as fact what amount of criticism would come to the Peronistas: they would almost certainly get more criticism from the USA and the IMF (and less approval) than Macri has done. My own impression re Kirchners is that things changed over time. In the early years of Kirchnerism there was very limited criticism and in the later years much more, so that Christina was able to go into her victimisation mode that has continued ever since. There was very limited criticism of the Junta and of Menem, for different reasons. So there may be many sides to every story but in the perspective of history 'the entire picture' will differ on how you personally decide to interpret the losses and gains, I would personally have to conclude that what happened in the dirty war was evil, whether or not the media reported it as such at the time. Similarly, I personally would conclude that the Kirchners were politically corrupt, whether or not they had the media in their pocket or not.
It also doesn’t help much that Argentines have a very short memory. I think it has a lot to do with their ‘vivir al dia’ live for the day mentality.
My cleaning lady who I’ve had for many years, during the Cristina years, especially during the time of the restriction of buying dollars, would rip CFK to shreds saying ANYTHING would be better than ‘la yegua’ (she had a small mortgage that had to be paid in USD and was having an impossible time obtaining them as she worked primarily en negro and AFIP wouldn’t allow her ‘justified income’ bracket to purchase the amount, so it was Cristina’s fault of course!
Fast forward a few years later to Macri and now she seems to have forgotten how badly she spoke about Cristina and how much she ‘suffered’ with CFK and speaks horribly about Macri. ‘Volveeeee chorra volveeeee que con vos llenábamos el carrito, con este no puedo ni llenar el canasto’
My cleaning lady who I’ve had for many years, during the Cristina years, especially during the time of the restriction of buying dollars, would rip CFK to shreds saying ANYTHING would be better than ‘la yegua’ (she had a small mortgage that had to be paid in USD and was having an impossible time obtaining them as she worked primarily en negro and AFIP wouldn’t allow her ‘justified income’ bracket to purchase the amount, so it was Cristina’s fault of course!
Fast forward a few years later to Macri and now she seems to have forgotten how badly she spoke about Cristina and how much she ‘suffered’ with CFK and speaks horribly about Macri. ‘Volveeeee chorra volveeeee que con vos llenábamos el carrito, con este no puedo ni llenar el canasto’
