How many of us are still here?

I just brought roast chicken from Vea, that cost 15800 pesos, miss that $5.99 chicken from Costco.

Also what is going on with the dollar to pesos recently? Anyone having an idea?
Three weeks ago I got some pesos via WesternUnion at 1:1320, now its 1120 as I'm checking right now.
Something went wrong....
 
Also what is going on with the dollar to pesos recently? Anyone having an idea?
Three weeks ago I got some pesos via WesternUnion at 1:1320, now its 1120 as I'm checking right now.
Something went wrong....
Imagine you are a day trader... news just broke that the IMF deal has closed and the government will defend the peso at a range of 1000-1400. The MEP is already at 1348. You need to place your bets before markets open...if you buy more dollars you stand to gain a possible return of only 3% (to 1400), but if you get the trade wrong and the dollars falls, you could lose 25% (to 1000). You know that the BCRA is already paying 30% on peso instruments. So what trade offers the highest return with the lowest risk? You sell your dollars and buy peso instruments until the dust settles.

Well guess what, everybody did the math and chose the same trade. The result? The blue/mep fell fast and reached parity with oficial. Those who didn't do the math are now stuck with devalued dollars waiting for the price to recover.

To expats the above may sound like rocket science but to the average trader this was elemental Watson...
 
I'm on my way out, but not as an "expat" but as an Argentine pushed out due to the cost of living crisis. I don't want to leave, hell, I naturalized as an Argentine citizen after all, but I don't see a future here anymore, and my husband has finally come to his senses and is willing to move abroad.

Salaries are flat in pesos (you maybe get a 1% a month increase if you're lucky while monthly inflation is almost 4 times higher at 3.7%, remember folks, this is worse now than the 12% inflation but 6% increase with Alberto because at least then you recouped half your salary, now you only recoup 25% if you're lucky), and way down if you earn in dollars. Inflation remains out of control despite the chainsaw, and even though the dollar is flat/decreased since the cepo was eliminated, prices are still increasing. The Economist has the Big Mac Index which is fine (Argentina remains in 2nd place vis a vis the most expensive Big Mac in the world), but I personally prefer the Coca Cola Index due to it simply being water, sugar, and CO2 with a rockbottom overhead for labor costs unlike McDonalds.

Take a look at Coca Cola prices in the region/developed/broader world and tell me how well the Milei Miracle is going...:

Developed:

US @ Walmart: $2.74
Canada @ Walmart: $2.01
France @ Carrefour: $2.75
Australia @ Woolworths: $2.69
Japan @ Aeon: $1.44
UAE @ Lulu: $2.18

Broader World:

South Africa @ Shoprite: $1.17
China @ Epermarket: $1.10
India @ Dmart: $0.82
Malaysia @ Aeon: $0.75

Region:

Brazil @ Pão de Açúcar: $1.81
Colombia @ Exito: $1.37
Chile @ Jumbo: $2.37
Peru @ Wong: $2.34
Mexico @ Walmart: $1.82

Wait for it...

Argentina @ Carrefour (CABA): $3.96 USD

VAMOSSSS, GOLLLLL!!!, AGUANTE MILEIII!!! PREMIO NOBEL YA!!!

Joking/sarcasm aside, someone please tell me how this is sustainable? How do you look at this and think, "Yes, sugar water being $4 is a sign of a healthy economy." While I realize this is one metric alone, it speaks to something fundamentally broken in Argentina's micro and macro economy: it doesn't add up. Someone shared loan offerings from BNA IIRC online today and the interest rates were beyond usurious, something like 240% TNA. So what is it? Are things going well and fine, or not so much? How come very few mortgage applications are being approved, yet there's in theory tons of dollars available? What is all the chainsawing for if nothing is being gained?

Couple this with the fact that very few companies have taken advantage of the RIGI and the continued, sustained brain drain of highly educated Argentines outwards to Spain and the US and I can't think of better (worse?) ewigen Wiederkehr; it's 2015 all over again, and anyone who says so is labeled a K, even if you were militantly anti Alberto and Cristina even before 2019.

But I digress, to my fellow forum members, I lament that my time amongst you all appears to be growing shorter like these autumn days, and I have already begun to study Portuguese and look for a home amongst the beaches of Brazil. I was truly hoping this time would be different, but I think all the Argentine Millennials might be right: the only exit is Ezeiza, and should things continue as they are, we'll be headed there by Christmas for warmer and stabler shores...
 
The six months a year I spend in Tampa FL I make more and spend less. But finances aside, Buenos Aires is a fun city. I will continue to call it my home away from home until they ask me to leave🤣
The number of Mileistas I get in fights with who refuse to believe this is crazy. People don't appreciate just how expensive Argentina is, pesos or dollars. I had to travel for work and coworkers asked me if I minded and I said no, I saved money because things were cheaper in the US, Brazil, and Europe
 
I’m a long term expat, married a Colombian Argentine here.

My other half earns in pesos, and while their salary has substantially improved in USD, it still buys the same as before in the days of Fernandez.

I earn self-employed in USD, EUR, GBP and earn a good wage by UK standard (where I am from), but it’s so demoralising whats happening here now. My efforts are worth less every day and many things cost more than they do in my native UK, which is an expensive country.

We spend 3 months a year during the winter in Medellin and luckily our visit is fast approaching, we leave mid-May and so can see out the next few months there. My other half will at least enjoy the overvalued Arg peso there!

While I generally prefer BA to Medellin, the economic situation here is making us question things. Cost of living is much cheaper in Colombia than here, even in very touristy Medellin.

It’s also an open economy with cheap technology, clothes and goods. They have international brands like Apple, Ikea, H&M and Decathlon with prices as cheap as in Europe.

Plus, traveling is cheaper there. Low cost airlines are actually low cost, and you’re close to the Caribbean, US.

So leisure purchases are very accessible. Buying clothes, technology or traveling here is ridiculous.

We are about to renew our rental contract here for another year and we have set that deadline—if things are still expensive this time next year, we’ll move to Colombia and come and spend a few months here per year.

My heart is in Buenos Aires, but the situation is unsettling here and the benefits of Medellin are beginning to massively outweigh here.

I know at least 3 expats who have left in the past 6 months due to cost of living.
 
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I’m still here and don’t want to leave, but we’ll see. For now I can survive. I don’t understand how any of this can last, but that’s what I thought 12 months ago too yet here we are, so clearly it can go on for another 3 years too.

As bad as I feel for myself, I feel worse for my many local middle-class friends and family who voted for Milei, all of whom are too proud to admit they made a mistake. “We needed this, we needed stability!” they tell me, mid-discussion while they’re complaining how they can no longer survive and pay their bills, without getting the irony. They were so obsessed that they needed a “proper economy like America” without knowing what they were talking about. You mean the USA where everyone hustles 24/7 to pay their bills and nobody has time for a social life or friends and family, that America? They had no idea how good they had it. What a great life they threw away for nothing at all.
 
I’m still here and don’t want to leave, but we’ll see. For now I can survive. I don’t understand how any of this can last, but that’s what I thought 12 months ago too yet here we are, so clearly it can go on for another 3 years too.

As bad as I feel for myself, I feel worse for my many local middle-class friends and family who voted for Milei, all of whom are too proud to admit they made a mistake. “We needed this, we needed stability!” they tell me, mid-discussion while they’re complaining how they can no longer survive and pay their bills, without getting the irony. They were so obsessed that they needed a “proper economy like America” without knowing what they were talking about. You mean the USA where everyone hustles 24/7 to pay their bills and nobody has time for a social life or friends and family, that America? They had no idea how good they had it. What a great life they threw away for nothing at all.
It's terribly sad to watch. My cuñada is a full time teacher, working 10 hours a day. She lives by herself and can no longer afford anything beyond the most essential. An attorney friend here put it very succinctly. Each crisis marginalizes new sectors, such that people are simply priced out of the greater economy. What's left is greater inequality.
 
It's terribly sad to watch. My cuñada is a full time teacher, working 10 hours a day. She lives by herself and can no longer afford anything beyond the most essential. An attorney friend here put it very succinctly. Each crisis marginalizes new sectors, such that people are simply priced out of the greater economy. What's left is greater inequality.
Shoes and belts here are so expensive, also roast chicken. uhmm...anything else cost less than it should be? Maybe the raw beef from freezer is still reasonable priced...for now.
 
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