David, I can sympathize with just about everything you posted. Don't listen to the asswipe that attacked you without provocation - all kinds come here and post, and some of them have some undesirable ways of expressing themselves.
Six years ago I divorced my wife of twenty years and moved to Buenos Aires myself. The divorce itself wasn't so bad, it was everything that came after, for me, that was horrible. But I ended up meeting a wonderful Paraguayan and we married four years ago. I'm in the IT business. I actually came down here originally to outsource development projects back to the States. I'm a programmer/project manager by trade.
I would urge caution on your move. I'm definitely not saying don't do it, but make sure you understand what you're getting yourself into.
On the IT side of things - when I came here, it was a pretty good market. I worked with a company who provided us programmers, but I ended up having to fire them and hire individuals because the company was all show. Managed its programmers poorly, actually cheated at times on billing (could have been mistakes, but we didn't think so because of how it happened) and paid their programmers so poorly in an attempt to give their clients a good price that there turned out to be a higher than acceptable turnover rate.
Most of the development work here is from international companies coming to take advantage of what used to be relatively good IT training to pay ratio. However, I have found that after the crisis in 2008 that programmer's pay in the States had fallen to a point where, with the other problems one encounters here, it is about the same to hire someone there instead, given all considerations.
I think other companies who came here for development work feel the same. I have two programmers here who I had rehired about a year ago, who were looking for work. They were having a hard time finding decent jobs. A third one went to work for a company in the States, telecommuting, because he couldn't find a decent job here.
You probably won't be able to get a white-collar job at all without having residency. That may not be so bad. Depending on your experience, you may be able to find a local company who will sponsor you, considering you speak English and they may find that great for their foreign clients. You can get residency fairly easily if you have an annuity of some sort, or an investment that pays dividends, etc, that you can prove. I think getting a job will be difficult though, because the IT market here isn't quite what it was.
You can't get a bank account here without residency. Not a terrible thing as you can (at least for now) get money out of cash machines to live, pay rent, etc. Many of the cash machine limit you to 1000 pesos a transaction and can become a bit expensive for things like paying rent. But once you are here awhile, there are advantages to having a bank account that can make life a bit easier. Something as simple as buying something online - I used to be able to buy movie tickets online with my US bank debit card, but within the last year or so, more companies are not accepting them for online purchases. Alto Palermo Cines does, but Recoleta doesn't. I used to be able to charge my Movistar phone with my debit card instead of buying prepaid cards, but not any more (I ended up getting a monthly plan with Personal, but you need a DNI to do that). Recently, my health insurance through Hospital Aleman wouldn't allow me to re-register my new bank card for monthly payments because it was not an Argentine bank. Many of the stores and supermarkets and movie theaters give you discounts (pretty good too) if you have a local account.
The economy here is falling apart. The government INDEC reports an inflation rate of 9.9%, while independent sources report anywhere from 25% to 35%. There seems to be no end in sight. The government is so concerned about that, that they have made huge problems for those who report the more correct inflation rates. The only internal source one can trust now is a group of Argentine lawmakers who stand up in Congress and give a report that really twists the president's panties in a wad.
Cristina recently put in place heavy import restrictions. We're beginning to see a lack of things as the warehouses run empty and no sign yet that she is planning to lift the restrictions any time soon.
You can't easily change pesos for dollars, and the peso is not always accepted even in places like Paraguay to change to the local currency. In Paraguay, last I heard (my wife just got back from there) when you can change you get something like 700 Guarani to the Peso, whereas the official rate is around 1000. When I first came here, the Guarani was 2800 to 1 Peso.
Another thing to think about is housing. Due to the laws here, you will have an extremely hard time renting with any kind of long-term lease. And in fact, we just heard that they are planning on changing some of those laws and we are wondering what affect that might have - probably not better, maybe no real change. But the only way you will be able to rent to begin with is most likely to be temporary, furnished apartments that are about twice the cost of a long-term rental. By law you cannot have a short-term lease longer than 6 months, but something about that was going to change (I can't remember what - there is a thread posted about it). Depending on the new law, that might not be so bad now - when I first came here there was a strong tourist business going and most apartments didn't have that kind of opening in their rent schedules. The longest term I found in almost two years was 4 months. Most of them were a month at a time, a few two. Given that things are getting worse and tourism seems to be dropping off, you might be able to find a full six month term (until the new law screws that up, if it does).
On top of that, a lot of people get ripped off by the owners of temporary apartments (well, not just temporary, but that is the most common I think). They find reasons to hold your deposit, no matter how well you take care of the apartment. Not all of the time. Out of some 12 different apartments I had, I only had problems with three. But I was in the supermarket a couple of days ago, talking to some expats from the UK, who were having problems closing out their month-long lease for this reason.
To get long-term leases you need a guarantee. This is almost always in the form of property. At the time of the signing, the owner of the property to be used as guarantee signs that the property will be used to cover any issues that arise on the side of the tenant. As you can imagine, it's potentially signing away quite a bit and not all that easy to find someone willing to do so.
Some people manage to find owners who are willing to rent to foreigners without a guarantee, but they are not easy to find. It takes some time to find them. Some owners will take the entire term of the contract up front, plus deposits, but not easy to find them either. The problem is that the laws here make it extremely difficult (as in something like two years in court) to get a renter out of your apartment, for any reason. If they don't leave, or don't pay the rent, the owner can bring action to recoup their loss via the guaranteed property.
You can buy here, but now it may not be a particularly easy process, particularly with the economy and the government's issues with bank transfers, etc. Personally, I don't want to own anything here on that scale because I don't trust the government.
In 2001, the last crash, the government stole 2/3 of the people's dollars in their accounts overnight with no warning. My wife was in the bank today standing in line and was listening to a local telling another that he is trying to get all of his dollars out of his bank before the economy collapses in 6 months (his opinion - I think it's going to be more like the end of the year, maybe a little later). Of course, with the restrictions the government has put on dollars here he is having a hard time getting it all out. I wouldn't be surprised if something similar happens if (when) the economy collapses this time.
I haven't mentioned the daily irritations that one can find if one looks. Bad service, bad manners, cheats, lack of availability of things one month that have always been available before, etc., etc. Those things you get used to after awhile, and in fact, they didn't even really impact me until I'd been here for about a year. It gets worse the more you integrate with the society here. Even the Argentinos complain about the same things.
There are probably more things, but I've probably put out enough to think about it.
If I were you, and you were bent on coming down, I'd make sure I had enough money to live for about a year here with no income from here. I work for clients in the States, so I'm not impacted by the local economy except for the lack of things and possibly in the future related to such things as being able to get money out of ATMs if the economy collapses. I would not want to depend on a local source of income.
The truth is, if I had come here now instead of 6 years ago and hadn't gone and gotten myself established, I doubt I would have stayed. As it is, we are thinking seriously of leaving and moving to Paraguay come the end of the year. We're waiting to see what things look like in the coming months.
Either way, good luck with your plans.
