Macri's Challenge

[ElQueso]

It's a shame people think that the idea that a stimulated economy produces jobs is a Republican theme only

I'd like to see where governments actually create jobs that contribute to the bottom line directly. Not as a "cost center". I don't have a problem with cost centers in business - they either contribute to the production of the bottom line (though they don't help create it directly) or they get flushed out as too expensive, in a well-run business. But the government is a cost center and doesn't create jobs itself - the best it does is create an environment within which jobs can be created by its citizens. Too big and oppressive and there are natural consequences as we see in Argentina.

Screw Reagan and his "trickle-down" theory - it sounds absurdly elitist, as if the poor people are dogs under the table feeding off the rich folks' scraps. To me, that happens when government either creates the conditions that force the poor to live that way, or create conditions that allow individuals in society to treat people that way, or a mix.

The reality is that poor people in a richer, freer country have better lives than the poor people in a poorly-run, over-bearing country that tries to control everything. Is that enough? Not for me - I'd rather thousands of people like me be free to do business and hire as many people as needed to do the work instead of being bogged down with ginormous (did you all know that's a "real" word?) regulations that make me want to limit salaries and the number of people I employ.

I'm not "accepting" poverty any more than I accept my eventual death. I know it's going to happen but I guarantee that I'll go kicking and screaming (at least figuratively) Just like death, poverty is still an incurable disease, at least while we have to have production and the gathering of raw materials, and shaping of ideas by mostly human hands. There will always be work that is underpaid in relation to other work but is in that status because it is relatively unskilled work, which is simply not as valuable as skilled work - otherwise we'd be pretty much like our cousin simians - intelligence and the ability to puzzle out the universe is our gift, not our curse. I'd rather be a human than an ape any day.

I'd rather be poor in the US (I've been there and it took me years to climb out) than poor in Argentina (I see it first-hand at least a couple of times a month as I have many poor relatives who live here in awful conditions amongst thousands of other poor people).

It's not trickle down - it's relative.

 

[Pensador]

Sadly employer/employee laws are designed to utterly clog any form of trickle down in Argentina so there will not be any trickle down in fact it is impossible in the current legal environment. The laws are so backwards that you would be crazy to not pay your help as little as possible. For the record I am not saying trickle down works but in Argentina there is no way.

 

[Rich One]

Le Grand Fromage .... It's sure Relative....!! I rather be poor in a small town in the Provincia de Buenos Aires than in Skid Row in LA . Will trade places with you anytime...! Watch the video..!


[background=rgba(28, 28, 28, 0.8)]https://youtu.be/98Wh1K1pT9Y[/background]

 

[ElQueso]

I am not at all suggesting a continuation of the Kirchner policies. Quite the contrary, I want to see people trained to work. The Kirchners preferred to keep people ignorant and dependent. The government can do a lot to develop job training. The government runs universities. Why can't they also train people in vocations, teach them English etc. The tourist industry suffers because of widespread lack of English skills. The infrastructure needs rebuilding . Argentina used to manufacture its own trains. What happened? There is a lot that government can do, not only by itself but working with the corporate sector to uplift the poor. A change of attitude is needed for sure, not only among the people but by the government. Macri will not last if he ignores the middle class and the poor. He needs to show that he cares. He cannot just increase taxes for the middle class while favoring corporations and the agricultural industry. There must be a balance.

I know you weren't suggesting a continuation of Kirchner policies. But again - what jobs should the government concentrate on training people into? You'd have to find current industries that have jobs to offer before that would even do any good. i haven't heard of a dearth of workers in industries here, not even tourism. And how long does it take to train someone? Will that job still be available when their training is done? Maybe the number of people trained in that particular industry had already reached its peak, but governments react slowly and will continue to crank out more of an unneeded skill set because of that and then how much money needs to be put toward fixing that issue?

Is the government going to create new industries for new jobs? How does a government that doesn't have enough money do that? Actually, Macri is working on that, but too many people hate the idea of foreign investment and seem to believe Cristina that such is simply not needed.

People have been studying English here for decades. I've never been in a country that has so many English speakers (of varied levels to be sure) where English is not their first language (OK, I've never been to Germany and some of the Nordic countries, nor industrialized, relatively-wealthy parts of China - though I did talk to one of the Chinese engineers who are coming here now - at the gym on Friday - he spoke English with nearly an American accent). But France doesn't suffer from tourism issues and my wife and her friends found more people in Italy that spoke English than in France on their European tour. That may well be because the French don't like to admit they speak English (tongue-in-cheek comment) but whatever the reason, it doesn't seem to hurt tourism there.

What hurt tourism here is the government's policies of the last 8 years or so. Not because not enough Argentinos speak English. Who wants to come visit a country that has so many issues economically and politically? How many travelers who came here for a week or two as a lark even knew about the blue dollar? A few years ago tourism was booming. My wife helps manage temporary apartments for tourists and they used to be overworked - the last two years things had almost dried up. This summer, things have already picked up hugely as people seem to think that things are changing here. i'd be willing to bet that as tourism picks up, there will be plenty of people who speak enough English to pick up any slack.

However - do you want an economy dependent on tourism? Should the government push that industry and depend on it like they do agriculture as well? I'd think the market would be a better motivating force than the idea that more people need to be trained in English to handle tourism.

But - what about things like the IT industry? Yes, English would help significantly with that, for sure. Funny thing is, when I came here in 2006 the software development industry was going strong and damned near everyone I dealt with spoke great English. It was one of the reasons we decided on Argentina. Argentina was turning out good technical people from universities in Cordoba and Bahia Blanca. Where did all of that go? Two of my programmers moved to Scotland because of how things were going here. Others work for local companies making a fraction of what they were making when international companies came here to hire their labor and those companies pulled out. Yet others have found jobs in lower-paying fields that aren't doing what they trained for.

And what happened to Argentina's previous production capabilities? the government took away a lot of incentives for people to have factories. Taxes, labor laws, etc. who wants to run a factory when you will be branded a traitor when the government's weight causes you to have to declare bankruptcy and instead of just figuring out how to pay your creditors you have to figure out how to defend yourself from the government itself?

I'm not suggesting that the poor are unimportant and should be ignored. Cristina had a method for selecting the poor, among other classes, who would "succeed" (as long as they adored her and were loyal). They were given money or positions without having to work. They were literally given food and such for their vote, while remaining poor (because there are a lot more poor than even Cristina could hire).

Is that what is good for a country and its poor? The rest of the poor remained ignorant and as bad off or worse than they were when Cristina became president. But there are all kinds of free education here - why didn't they take advantage of that? Because they weren't driven, they figured they had no hope anyway or they didn't have the educational background to take advantage of going further (because their primary and secondary education sucks something awful). the law opening up attendance to anyone who graduated secondary here is almost laughable (if it weren't so serious) - it ignores so many basic problems and fixes nothing.

I could see UBA opening up some kind of retraining program, OK, I get that. But UBA already has problems meeting all of its obligations at various levels. Macri could open up some kind of federal training program, but again, what should it concentrate on? How does it get funded without enough economic support to get anywhere when even UBA can't handle what it already has as well as it should? That is something that richer countries can afford, but I don't know how Argentina could find the money in the next few years to have enough industry to retrain people to work in them.

But again, this whole idea that the government can make everything alright, that it can employ everyone (and I don't mean directly, although Cristina tried that, I mean "creating jobs") and that it can be the judge of what's needed didn't work recently. It could work a whole lot better under other management, but you can't depend on the management staying the same.

I believe that working with the industrial sector to create jobs means three basic things: if you're going to provide public education - do it, don't fake it. Adherence to the law and the application of the law for all equally, and finally getting out the way of those who know what they're doing economically to allow them to create jobs within that fair framework. This should allow people from all walks of life to have opportunities and then let them make of their life what they will.

 

[ElQueso]

Le Grand Fromage .... It's sure Relative....!! I rather be poor in a small town in the Provincia de Buenos Aires than in Skid Row in LA . Will trade places with you anytime...! Watch the video..!


[background=rgba(28, 28, 28, 0.8)]https://youtu.be/98Wh1K1pT9Y[/background]

Well, this one is from outside a big villa - didn't see where it said which one, but it looks like Villa 31, along the highway that leads out of the city at Retiro, heading toward the airport:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Ns3gdsPNII

This is from Lujan, 75 kilometers from Buenos Aires:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pOZPcP2-1E4

Relatively, in Villa 31 there are as many thieves and gangs and drug dealers as you will find on skidrow in LA. The big difference - there aren't nearly as many skidrows in the States as there are people living like I showed in my two links here in Argentina and even the dirtiest aren't as absolutely filthy and unhealthy as the Lujan villa. Or Jose C Paz where I have some very direct experience.

And how long do you think someone moving through Villa 31 with a camera in a nice car is going to last, at night, like in your link?

I wouldn't want to be poor anywhere. In SkidRow in LA, I might have a problem because I'm white - I can guarantee you I could find a place where I would fit in better and still be as poor - and I'd rather live there than in Villa 31 or the Lujan villa,or any others - if only because I would have some hope of lifting myself out of poverty in the States, compared to here.

I know there are poor people in the States who are homeless, for example. Who live without lights and water. But there are 310 million inhabitants of the US (more or less) and the vast majority do not live like that, even among the poor. Here, there are some 40 million inhabitants and I see tens of thousands living like that all the time (I pass by Villa 31 at least a few times a week and it gives me the willies. I go to Jose C Paz where there are a number of extremely poor neighborhoods like the Villa 31, but the homes are built horizontally instead of vertically, more room to spread out. I used to live backed up to a small villa in Garin.), and I know there are more than I've ever seen.

I didn't see anything in your link that would make me change my opinion

 

[EJLarson]

I am not at all suggesting a continuation of the Kirchner policies. Quite the contrary, I want to see people trained to work. The Kirchners preferred to keep people ignorant and dependent. The government can do a lot to develop job training. The government runs universities. Why can't they also train people in vocations, teach them English etc. The tourist industry suffers because of widespread lack of English skills. The infrastructure needs rebuilding . Argentina used to manufacture its own trains. What happened? There is a lot that government can do, not only by itself but working with the corporate sector to uplift the poor. A change of attitude is needed for sure, not only among the people but by the government. Macri will not last if he ignores the middle class and the poor. He needs to show that he cares. He cannot just increase taxes for the middle class while favoring corporations and the agricultural industry. There must be a balance.

With your heart in the right place, the flaw in what you say would be summarized by the answer to this question (as Elqueso and others have alluded):

Are Argentina's current economic problems caused by an untrained workforce?

Only if that's true does it make sense to invest lots of scarce resources in training right now.

Now of course nobody is against training. The question is, if we have a very limited amount to spend would it be wise to spend it on training if there are no jobs to be had? In the final analysis, government can create jobs at will - look at cfk's excesses with her legion of ñoquis - but government cannot create wealth, only shuffle wealth created by others. It can foster climates where wealth is created but it can't do it itself - that's the role of industry and entrepreneurs. So first priority for this government needs to be to set the stage for investment, domestic or international, in enterprises that create jobs. Then, when the employers start asking for more skilled workers, that's the time for government to step in and improve the economic infrastructure by helping the workforce elevate its skills.

It's certainly true that Macri must show himself to be everyone's President. But is a full-on training program before the economy is rebuilt the answer?

 

[Rich One]

Well, this one is from outside a big villa - didn't see where it said which one, but it looks like Villa 31, along the highway that leads out of the city at Retiro, heading toward the airport:

https://www.youtube....h?v=5Ns3gdsPNII

This is from Lujan, 75 kilometers from Buenos Aires:

https://www.youtube....h?v=pOZPcP2-1E4

Relatively, in Villa 31 there are as many thieves and gangs and drug dealers as you will find on skidrow in LA. The big difference - there aren't nearly as many skidrows in the States as there are people living like I showed in my two links here in Argentina and even the dirtiest aren't as absolutely filthy and unhealthy as the Lujan villa. Or Jose C Paz where I have some very direct experience.

And how long do you think someone moving through Villa 31 with a camera in a nice car is going to last, at night, like in your link?

I wouldn't want to be poor anywhere. In SkidRow in LA, I might have a problem because I'm white - I can guarantee you I could find a place where I would fit in better and still be as poor - and I'd rather live there than in Villa 31 or the Lujan villa,or any others - if only because I would have some hope of lifting myself out of poverty in the States, compared to here.

I know there are poor people in the States who are homeless, for example. Who live without lights and water. But there are 310 million inhabitants of the US (more or less) and the vast majority do not live like that, even among the poor. Here, there are some 40 million inhabitants and I see tens of thousands living like that all the time (I pass by Villa 31 at least a few times a week and it gives me the willies. I go to Jose C Paz where there are a number of extremely poor neighborhoods like the Villa 31, but the homes are built horizontally instead of vertically, more room to spread out. I used to live backed up to a small villa in Garin.), and I know there are more than I've ever seen.

I didn't see anything in your link that would make me change my opinion

You have narrowly chosen the Villas 31/Ghettos near large Urban centers but there are poor families in small towns like Pergamino or San Atonio de Areco or Mercedes . That live of the fat of the land...!!

PD both are depressing don't want to watch any more...

 

[EdRooney]

A lot of issues here I'd like to address, but I won't have time for all of them:

1. Education:

There is a simple market-based way to determine if a workforce is undereducated: because of supply and demand, you will see exorbitant salaries paid to those who do have the educational skills that are under-represented in the labour market. In Argentina, while a small sliver of IT does get disproportionately high salaries, in the rest of the larger sectors (eg infrastructure construction, medical research, industrial engineering...) the demand is not there. Without the demand for labour existing first, Argentina would run the risk of turning into countries like Spain or Greece, which have huge highly educated workforces that cannot find jobs and migrate elsewhere. So the answer is not necessarily more education, it's more jobs.

2. Economic stimulus:

Cheese, forgive me if I am misreading you, but I think you may be convoluting economic stimulus with market liberalisation? An example of economic stimulus would be the way China reacted to the 2008 economic crisis: by having the government spend USD $600 billion (13% of GDP) into the economy, mainly on new infrastructure. By way of comparison in the US the Democrats proposed a comparatively much smaller USD $800 billion stimulus plan (5% of GDP-- over 60% smaller!) and it was fought against tooth-and-nail by the Republicans. By contrast, if I read you right, you are saying stimulus = cutting taxes, loosening regulations, government "getting out of the way".

Just to be clear with our terms, both sides argue that they are stimulating the economy, so the question is not that one side wants stimulus and the other doesn't; rather it's a matter of they disagree as to which actions will stimulate economic growth.


3. Tourism:

Follow the money! If you look at tourism stats, people tend to travel where their own currency will get them the most value. Tourism here boomed in 2002 because a dollar or a real would buy a boatload of stuff. Another huge factor in the drop in tourism here has been the fact that Brasil's economy fell (was dropped?) into the gutter meaning Brazilians can no longer afford to come here as before. Thus it is economic factors that play the hugest role. The English (/Portuguese) skills of the natives don't seem to have any effect on the flow of tourists.

 

[Noesdeayer]

Ed Rooney:
Very well taken on # 2 and 3. However, not so much on # 1 Education.I
If you read Sergio's second post again and my original one,we talk about JOB TRAINING not education per se.With incoming investment (and there should be a considerable amount of it) there will be an accompaning growth in different sectors As you mention.IT has been and will continue to be one.Vocational training like the Otto Kraus secondary school in Monserrat is a good example.
Once the economy becomes more dynamic ON THE JOB TRAINING can be done by the companies themselves.I worked in on the job training with Marriott Corporation in the U.S. for 15 years before coming to Argentina and most of the employees were Latin American.It worked there and it can work here too.A decent salary is a great stimulus to learning.

 

[EdRooney]

OK perhaps my fault for not being explicit enough, I'll try again: Argentina is clearly not suffering from an excess of employers who want to hire people but cannot find anyone qualified to fill positions due to personnel lacking training.