Inernational Post-Vol 2 Part 13

[ajoknoblauch]

The only reason I drag this keester to EZE is to leave the country or see a ballgame. No parcel is worth that much hassle.

You actually can see a real ballgame at Ezeiza: http://www.beisbolmetro.com.ar/ (didn't realize what your link was, but it's worth repeating).

 

[Redpossum]

Of course the govt is guilty. Its just that EVERY government is guilty. Do not expect a huge change with the next one, as well as it used to be like this before the Ks. My point is that its not a K thing, is an Argentina thing.
((And I would not expect a change on the dollar situation either...))

THIS is something that certain members of this forum need to have tattooed backwards across their foreheads, so they see it in the mirror every morning.

 

[Gringoboy]

Total nonsense.
When I arrived here in 2005, you could have a parcel delivered to your door without an inquisition, stroll to a high street bank and change foreign currency without feeling like a criminal, buy stuff online without heinous penalty charges, buy an airline ticket and not be penalised,obtain imported goods at reasonable prices and move around the streets without fear of being mugged or getting your head blown off.

 

[ajoknoblauch]

Total nonsense.
When I arrived here in 2005, you could have a parcel delivered to your door without an inquisition, stroll to a high street bank and change foreign currency without feeling like a criminal, buy stuff online without heinous penalty charges, buy an airline ticket and not be penalised,obtain imported goods at reasonable prices and move around the streets without fear of being mugged or getting your head blown off.

I expect that the next government will reverse some of the silliest Camporistas measures. As for personal safety, I have never felt threatened in Buenos Aires, except by one obnoxious taxi driver who was pissed off that we only wanted to go to Palermo Botánico from Aeroparque.

 

[Chet]

Entrenched bureaucracies everywhere do this sort of nonsense. I don't think it has anything to do with politics.

 

[ajoknoblauch]

Entrenched bureaucracies everywhere do this sort of nonsense. I don't think it has anything to do with politics.

In the current government's case, it certainly does. They're control freaks who are desperate for dollars, though they're willfully ignorant of how counter-productive their measures are. Alternatively, they don't care how counter-productive their policies are so long as they keep others from establishing a short-term power base (and, in Argentine politics, short-term is the only thing that matters).

 

[ben]

Um, politics is the main factor in giving the bureaucracies room to take hold and expand?

There was not the possibility of a bureaucracy to harass recipients of regular mail until the political decision was taken to, shall we say scrutinize entire categories of mail - far more, er, thoroughly than previously (and than is accepted as normal the world over).

 

[Chet]

Um, politics is the main factor in giving the bureaucracies room to take hold and expand?

There was not the possibility of a bureaucracy to harass recipients of regular mail until the political decision was taken to, shall we say scrutinize entire categories of mail - far more, er, thoroughly than previously (and than is accepted as normal the world over).

Sure, government makes the large entrenched bureaucracies possible, but its not any particular type of government. The same things happens in large companies/corporations and even religions.
So its not an ideology sort of thing, which is what we mostly mean when we say politics.

 

[Redpossum]

Total nonsense.
When I arrived here in 2005, you could have a parcel delivered to your door without an inquisition, stroll to a high street bank and change foreign currency without feeling like a criminal, buy stuff online without heinous penalty charges, buy an airline ticket and not be penalised,obtain imported goods at reasonable prices and move around the streets without fear of being mugged or getting your head blown off.

If you say so, I believe you. Obviously, I wasn't here, but you're a reasonable person. On the other hand, let's turn that around and point it at the USA.

In 2005, I had a job, working almost full-time. I owned my house, and was caught up on my property taxes. I owned a piece of property in Julian, as well.

By the end of 2012, I had been unemployed or badly under-employed for 5 years. I had lost the property in Julian when the interest-only note came due and I was unable to re-finance because there was no credit available. I had been forced to sell my house, at roughly half what it was worth in 2005, to avoid having it confiscated for unpaid property taxes.

But I don't hear you railing at the Bush or Obama administrations for the crash of 2007/2008.

Let me quote Matthew 7:2-5

For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again.
And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?
Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me pull out the mote out of thine eye; and, behold, a beam is in thine own eye?
Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye.

 

[ben]

Great.

So on the one hand, we have:

• a bad economic environment, in which:
  • unemployment increased
  • and credit tightened.

That certainly caused people to suffer, no minimizing that.

On the other hand, we have:

• bad economic environment,
  • unemployment - ? (to best of my knowledge undefined, no simple way to measure legal/illegal employment),
  • and credit as nonexistent as ever,
• plus, to quote gringoboy but break it down a bit, you cannot
  • have a parcel delivered to your door without an inquisition,
  • stroll to a high street bank and change foreign currency without feeling like a criminal,
  • buy stuff online without heinous penalty charges, buy an airline ticket and not be penalised,
  • obtain imported goods at reasonable prices
  • and move around the streets without fear of being mugged or getting your head blown off.

Now you tell me which appears nearer to a fairly 'normal', run-of-the-mill, economic downturn (to be clear: with tangible victims, much suffering, and with blame to be assigned), and which appears nearer a bizarro parallel universe.