How's everyone hanging in there with the cost of living these days?

[FrankPintor]

10) In all fairness, it looks like since in H1-2022 it ranged from 3 to 7.5% monthly. So from mid 2020 the curve indicates a trend up. Did the government do anything to alter course or not? I understand this is also during the pandemic but from my understanding he didn't do a great job handling that either (I was not here then nor have I studied much about it).

Yes Milei has the high 2023 number due to devaluation and that also would have carried through for a few months following as it rippled through the system and other impacts (salary and rent adjustments). That devaluation was also necessary as it was just the government propping up the peso artificially. Hence the extre difference between the official and Blue dollars at the time, which have essentially not existed since.

10) who are you being fair to? I'd suggest the variations between the start of Alberto's term and 2022 are not statistically significant. No upward trend.

Where do you get that Alberto didn't do a great job of handling the pandemic? I think he did as well as possible, given the circumstances and given the scientific knowledge at the time. Remember, there was no lockdown, we could always go out. As far as possible, we moved to remote work. It wasn't ideal, but the numbers show that Argentina performed well in an international comparison. Libertarians and antivaxxers would have you believe otherwise, of course (and a new one just outed himself recently). Alberto's problem was the handling of the economy, particularly post-COVID.

Differences have opened up again between the blue and official Dollar rates since Milei assumed the presidency. I can't find a graph comparing both rates right now, but fairly recently (around election time?), a 10-20% gap opened up, which is not insignificant. Also, typically, the blue Dollar has a wider spread The gap is small now, but the spread for the blue Dollar is normally around 20 Pesos, while the spread for the official rate might be 50 Pesos or more, indicating (I think) less confidence in the official rate. In short, the difference is there and it can become quite large, even now.

11) I will say that I have a hard time reading some translated articles here. I think its due to the slang here, but also the style of writing. In that article it mentions that they use what you will pay in cash versus by other means. Considering many people digital wallets (MP and MODO) and they get discounts with those. I think it also said something about that if there was a 10% discount this period then that would apply to the previous period. I didn't really understand this point. The way they price things here I think does alter the comparative unit pricing used for the measurements. In which case, Caputo is correct. To suggest using the unit price when in reality people buy it according to the discounts (or why would they be offered) would be ignoring reality. In terms of delaying the implementation of a new basket composition, there are a couple issues from my understanding:a) comparing monthly inflation numbers with differing composition criteria making comparison with previous months impossible, and b) the recomposition was based on a survey from 2018 (prepandemic etc) and that this new comosition isn't current anymore in terms of being representative. Therefore, the update would not really be closing the gap as well as it can be in terms of representativeness. If people want to suggest that the current numbers are not realistic, then wouldn't that also carry back to the previous administration numbers including the ones you have presented?

I think without a doubt the inflation numbers reported in Argentina are extremely more accurate and functional than those reported in other countries, primarily North America.

11) I have a hard time reading you when you go off at a tangent. I thought you were asking how the INDEC monthly inflation index has been manipulated, and I demonstrated fairly conclusively how this has been done. End of, I thought, but now you want to talk about cash, digital wallets, and the like. Not going there, sorry.

Caputo is most certainly not correct. While one primary objective for an inflation index is to be able to compare past and current inflation numbers, and in the case where continuity should be sacrificed (perhaps changed consumer behaviour, or whatever), make the transition to a new methodology as clear and as transparent as possible. Or if the decision is not to change, then also make this as clear and as transparent as possible. Not force the resignation of the head of the agency, but then, nothing Caputo does is either clear or transparent. Why are you asking about previous administrations? Whataboutism doesn't win arguments.

I think without a doubt you've drawn the opposite conclusion to most observers of Argentina's economy. Certainly the opposite conclusion to most of the forum members. But maybe, against all evidence, you've made your mind up already. That's fine, we can stop now.

 

[Ronnie Hotdogs]

The price of my haircut doubled from almost exactly one year ago.
Meanwhile the Pound gained 46% on the peso.

 

[LuckyLuke]

The price of my haircut doubled from almost exactly one year ago.
Meanwhile the Pound gained 46% on the peso.

This is something I've noticed, the inflation of professional services seems to be far exceeding the inflation of consumables. Forget the INDEC of 31.5%, or even carne going up 70% in a year. The real story is in professional costs.

Took my kid to get his hair cut and the rate went from $20,000 to $35,000 after only 3 months. A 75% increase.

My accountant raised her prices from $22,500 in January last year to $70,000 for January this year....an increase of 211%.

The private school for my kids just announced that the aumento for the first quarter of 2026 is 30% and quarter two an extra 30%. We're talking 120% annually.

How anybody is keeping up with this is beyond me. The wage/price spiral seems to be out of control.

 

[FrankPintor]

I'm not seeing these huge increases, at least not for hairdressers (25% increase over a year, from 16000 to 20000), or accountancy fees (52%, from 69000 to 105000 to prepare my monthly VEP for ARCA). The increases are enough, to be sure, but nothing like 75, 100, or 211%

 

[Che1990]

Look on the bright side, for those of us who work and aren’t retired, we can now provide services here and charge ok.

It’s no longer necessary to work online 100% for US/European companies.

 

[LongtimeExpat]

I cut my own hair. I mentioned it to my cousin once. He said, "Yeah, we can tell."

 

[sergio]

The price of my haircut doubled from almost exactly one year ago.
Meanwhile the Pound gained 46% on the peso.

So what do you pay nowadays?

 

[Quilombo]

I don't know how people are making it to the end of the month. I still get ads from Argentine companies/grocery stores/easy/etc. and will be coming to visit family and friends soon, and it's just insane.

If I had stayed instead of moving next door to Brazil, I would have lost 20.1% of my purchasing power, on top of all the purchasing power lost since Milei entered office. (this also assumes we believe INDEC's numbers, and I think they've been cooking them like they did under Cristina given how expensive food alone is, yet the increases don't seem to reflect this)

Brazil has lots of problems too, don't get me wrong, but the fact that the power stays on in the summertime, and that my bills don't skyrocket each month is such a stress reliever. My medications are a fraction of the cost they were in Argentina (One medication in particular is $41.100 ARS here vs $513,694 ARS in BsAs with OS discount), even though I now pay full price as I don't have an obra social, and grocery stores, Amazon, etc. actually have sales here, not fake "sales" where they jack the price up and then put items "on sale" at the old retain price, and appliances, furniture, etc, hell, even electronics are cheaper.

Just another example to give folks an idea: the Colgate toothpaste I like is $8,578 ARS at Farmacity per tube right now, and the exact same size, brand, everything, and it's $2,370 ARS here. Milei, Caputo, and the Caste have Argentines over a barrel and I'm surprised the delinquency rates on consumer credit are only 10%. When will Milei be picking up his Nobel Prize in Economics?

Wasn't the whole motivation behind crashing the economy is that it would lower inflation? All this suffering and inflation is still 3% a month (more if you include things people actually consume) and there seems to be little to nothing to show for it. I have no subsidies on my electric bill, ran AC 24/7 last month, and paid half of what I did in CABA in the middle of the winter (I didn't dare turn the space heater on) and the power actually stays on here. Weird how "zurdo marxista Brasil" has managed to have a functioning economy, yet Milei can't spend more than 2 weeks in Argentina before jet setting abroad to accept some other fake award. Maybe if he stayed in Argentina a bit longer he'd see that things are not "marching according to plan" as Caputo likes to say.

 

[Ronnie Hotdogs]

So what do you pay nowadays?

Went from 16000 to 30000

 

[on the brink]

Hello Ronnie.... glad your move worked out. Where in Brazil are you?