Foreign credit cards purchases at MEP rate

[lunar]

I guess you don't have much experience with cuevas. I do.

The importance of empirical observations is often overrated. Merely visiting multiple caves daily and inquiring about prices does not necessarily provide you with an understanding of how things work, even if you believe otherwise.

Ambito obtains pricing data from a representative sample of cuevas and then calculates the averages. They even confirm it themselves: "Sí, sí señor, ¡Así es como lo hacemos!".

 

[Redpossum]

I guess you don't have much experience with cuevas. I do. (And I know how Ambito supposedly gets its information, the survey of cuevas. Do you have any idea how many cuevas there are? How many cuevas do you think Ambito surveys? And how do you think that all the newspapers have the same prices within minutes of each other, even when the prices are changing rapidly? These past few days the blue price was changing sometimes five times or more in an hour. Think about it.)

The other day I went to the cueva I use most. He was offering 4 pesos less than Ambito was showing. His price 422, Ambito 426. So I said I'd return, and I walked around Florida and asked prices. I was offered prices of 415, 410, 412 and 416. They all insisted it was their best price, even when I showed them Ambito's price. "No, no, señor. Imposible." I went back to my cueva and got 423.

An excellent summary, and a good point.

And I understand that your point isn't getting an extra peso from your usual cueva, (at less than a quarter of a penny per peso, big whoop-whoop), but rather that prices vary from cueva to cueva, and are always in flux during times of such wild instability. The fact that the blue jumped 32 pesos in 24 hours yesterday is downright scary.

"Vuelve, De La Rua, te perdonamos."

The importance of empirical observations is often overrated. Merely visiting multiple caves daily and inquiring about prices does not necessarily provide you with an understanding of how things work, even if you believe otherwise.

Ambito obtains pricing data from a representative sample of cuevas and then calculates the averages. They even confirm it themselves: "Sí, sí señor, ¡Así es como lo hacemos!".

In this situation, with politics run wild and influencing everything in this election year, and all sources of news rendered untrustworthy, I'll go with empirical observation, thank you, and the experiences of my fellow expats.

 

[Redpossum]

Too late to edit the above, so I'll make a new post, apologies.

By no means the least worrisome part of the business is, I was just watching an interview with Gerardo Morales, (of all people!), and he was actually making very good sense. His manner was calm, his comments were reasonable and conciliatory, the wily old bastard was actually sounding like a statesman, as crazy as that may be.

Gerardo Morales (politician) - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[argentinaorbust]

I guess you don't have much experience with cuevas. I do. (And I know how Ambito supposedly gets its information, the survey of cuevas. Do you have any idea how many cuevas there are? How many cuevas do you think Ambito surveys? And how do you think that all the newspapers have the same prices within minutes of each other, even when the prices are changing rapidly? These past few days the blue price was changing sometimes five times or more in an hour. Think about it.)

The other day I went to the cueva I use most. He was offering 4 pesos less than Ambito was showing. His price 422, Ambito 426. So I said I'd return, and I walked around Florida and asked prices. I was offered prices of 415, 410, 412 and 416. They all insisted it was their best price, even when I showed them Ambito's price. "No, no, señor. Imposible." I went back to my cueva and got 423.

My apologies for the length, but I think you're confused..

You're dealing with street corners arbolitos & Calle Florida which is notoriously known for being shady. These people have 0 police protection & you're taking a large risk by buying USD from them as they don't stamp.

A legit cueva in zona norte, palermo, etc has employees, rent, expenses, etc to pay. They also routinely lose money on devaluations. To compensate, they charge a commission. It's the same reason you will never get the central bank USD/EUR rate, at minimum it's a 1.5% commission from places like visa, but normally much higher. It's not possible to operate offices on a 0.75% ambito buy/sell spread.

Ambito, cronista, etc are contacting the "central cuevas". Who they are is not public information but it's probably people inside the central bank. The "central cuevas" provide liquidity to the smaller offices, when someone buys 40 or 50k usd after selling a car or whatnot, now the cueva has backpacks full of pesos they need to immediately liquidate to USD what they won't sell that day - they go to a "central cueva".

In Argentina, the dollar blue is a government backed institution, a "cueva" is a bank & a legit one should have the same security. My "cueva" was granted essential business license & never shut down during covid (entire calle florida was raided by police during covid...), they can arrange to safely transport large amounts of cash, every thief in the city knows if you touch their clients they're going to get rained on & they stamp all USD.

As I said before, you can find people who will give you better rates (if you really want the best, go deal with smugglers in border towns, ambito+10-15% is normal there), but these people are not professional money exchangers & they profit in other ways.

 

[argentinaorbust]

I will also add, what you see on ambito/cronista/etc - this is the cash rate ***in Buenos Aires***. Outside of BA that rate normally gets lower.

In much of the tourist towns in Patagonia, Salta, Misiones, etc it's common for 50, 60, 70%, etc of the population to live off of government welfare, since all the welfare is electronic payments this creates peso cash shortages lowering the value of USD cash since there's not much peso cash in circulation. Most of Patagonia is ambito-10%, Misiones ambito-15%, etc.

This is why I always chuckle at these news articles implying that inflation is not a well planned & well expected event in Argentina.

 

[De Callisto]

"The importance of empirical observations is often overrated."

Empirical observation is one of the foundational tenets of the scientific method; which in turn is responsible for countless advances in science and technology. Without it, results are, at best, speculative.

 

[malandro]

Anyone know how Visa credit cards are currently treating the MEP issue? Just got mine, did a test transaction, it's gone into pending at the official rate.

Visa says 419 to 1, this am.

 

[malandro]

"The importance of empirical observations is often overrated."

Empirical observation is one of the foundational tenets of the scientific method; which in turn is responsible for countless advances in science and technology. Without it, results are, at best, speculative.

Except that "empirical observation" must be presented in language, which is always and everywhere subject to negotiation. Cf. Wittgenstein.

 

[lunar]

"The importance of empirical observations is often overrated."

Empirical observation is one of the foundational tenets of the scientific method; which in turn is responsible for countless advances in science and technology. Without it, results are, at best, speculative.

You can observe the temperature changes and notice that it is hot in summer and cold in winter, but that alone would never enable you to understand why the seasons change.

 

[malandro]

You can observe the temperature changes and notice that it is hot in summer and cold in winter, but that alone would never enable you to understand why the seasons change.

It's the same everywhere and all the time. Empirical observations have to be expressed in language. Language is subject to negotiation. If you try to pull back the curtain to show what's really real, you will find yourself using language. Apologies--it's the result of too many years in sociology.