Inflation expected to top 30% this year

[ssr]

Except that I think that this administration has done Argentina far more damage than any others. This rich, wonderful land has become the laughingstock of the world. It is hard to hear people sneer at us for being naive, stupid, and bent on self-destruction.

The Kirchners are to blame for making Argentina the laughingstock of the world? Are you retroactively blaming them for everything that's happened in Argentina over the past century?

Also, if hearing people sneer about your country bothers you, you are perhaps a bit too sensitive. We Americans are accustomed to all sorts of anti-American nonsense and it doesn't bother us in the least. However, actually being "naive, stupid, and bent on self-destruction" (and too puffed up on false pride, I would add) is a problem, whether it's in the US, in one of the PIIGS in Europe, in Argentina or anyplace else in the world. We all have lots of work to do and lots of problems to fix. "The world" isn't laughing or sneering at any one country in particular, SaraSara, so you should all just go about fixing your country instead of worrying about what some strangers happen to think about it.

 

[French jurist]

Nevertheless, the new ley of media is great :
- Preamble : it was preceeded by the despenalization of calumnia when public interests are at hand (this was applauded by HR associations around the world).
- Last ley of the media was made by Videla (!)
- New law imposes a minimum percentage of national production (70% for tv, 30% music...) which is great (some European countries adopted those measures twenty five years ago, it worked).
- New law limits the possibilities of monopoly (oligopoly ?) like Grupo Clarin is (by the way Clarin's owner, Ernestina Herrera de Noble has two kids who were born around 1977/78 : they were abducted and everybody knows ...
- etc etc ...

Nevertheless corruption is the common issue, once more, and when you see where it has led Greece, it makes you wonder.

I wonder what are the projections for the next Presidential elections ?

 

[mini]

And whose name is on the account?

Mine?.........

 

[SaraSara]

ssr:

I'm American, too, so I'm used to taking criticism. Being ridiculed is harder. Much as Europeans laughed themselves silly at Americans for electing Bush, South Americans are now laughing at Argentines for tolerating the Kirchners. Frankly, it is shameful to have a cartoon character like this Botox Queen representing us - just compare her with Chile's Bachelet.

As for changing the country, Argentina is still in diapers when it comes to politics. Do you know what a "lista sabana" means? Simply, that here there are no congressional districts as in the States. Representatives are elected in a block, to represent a whole province. As a result of this, we don't even know who they are. They are totally insulated from their constituents, and are not accountable to them - they answer only to party bosses.

Until that is changed, Argentina will not make progress. We have a very long way to go.

 

[mini]

And who do you believe?

The media?

I believe my eyes. I can SEE villas filled with unemployed people. I can SEE prices going up every 2 months. I can SEE my bank account emptying faster each month with the same expenses. I can SEE my friends struggling to keep their businesses afloat. I can SEE the prices crossed out of the menus with new ones written in. I can SEE my friends not being able to cover their expenses as they did last month. I can SEE.

 

[SaraSara]

Mini, that's a great format. Let me borrow it to post what I SEE:

I can SEE whole families of "cartoneros" going through trash cans, and I SEE hordes of beggars at traffic lights, and I can SEE half-empty restaurants. I can SEE my friend's children emigrating because there are no jobs here for them, and I can SEE young people earning so little that they are unable to rent a room in a shared apartment.

And lastly, I can SEE my dollar pension shrinking by the minute. If inflation tops 30% this year, I may have to move to Uruguay, where inflation is "only" 10%.

 

[jp]

Nevertheless, the new ley of media is great....

On reflection, i'm not so sure.

Its a great law in a functioning democracy that upholds free, fair elections, encourages discourse and vigorously protects free speech. But in a country that rigs elections, buys votes, bullies and intimidates the opposition and routinely harasses dissenting voices its a fairly worrying development.

I'd have a lot more faith in the K's love of free speech if they didn't try shut people up so often. Or mount campaigns against them - not that long ago that K ran advertising denouncing Clarin for daring question their inflation figures. Can you imagine that happening anywhere else? US or European governments funding advertising campaigns (with taxpayers money) denouncing a newspaper?

Sooner she's out the better. She might represent the best government in 40 years, but thats a sorry reflection on forty years of violence, murder, corruption and incompetence. Argentina deserves better than either of the Kirchners.