conspicuous consumption is a constant in every country I have ever been in- and its certainly going strong in the USA, as well as Argentina, these days.
but you have to remember- "most" people dont buy new cars in any country.
last year in the USA, it was the best year ever for selling new cars- 17 million sold.
That translates to around 5% of the population buying a car.
And most new cars in the USA are kept for 3-5 years before being sold.
Which means that at most, 25% of the US population is buying the vast majority of cars.
and 50% of the US pop. will never be able to afford a new car.
Same thing in Argentina.
If 10% of the pop. is doing well enough to buy a new car every few years, it will SEEM like there are tons of new cars. And it will indeed be true that money is flowing, and the economy is improving. That doesnt meant that the other 80%, which probably will never buy a new car, is doing as well. But they, too, are doing better than they were ten years ago.
If you look at this chart, which, of course is just the best reflection I can find, not the absolute gospel truth, you can see that car sales this year are actually down, from an all time peak in 2013.
http://www.tradingeconomics.com/argentina/car-registrations
so, yes, 2013 was the best year for car sales in the history of the country.
this does mean, empirically, that things have been getting better, compared to, say, 1995, or 1965.
More people can afford cars now in Argentina than ever before.
Thats a fact, regardless of the fact that many people will never be able to afford even a used car.
Those two facts are not in opposition. The co-exist in truthyness, as Colbert would say.
