New Online Purchasing Laws

[steveinbsas]

I can go to Europe and use my US ATM card with no problem whatsoever.

Thanks!

I've been there and done that, too!

 

[nikad]

I have family/friends ties here and was in doubt whether to bring my girl here or go myself to Europe as we both have apts to stay in each place. My mind was made up in the last few months, but the plus is that I'll travel the heck out of Ryan/Wizz Air, and take advantage of some ticketing goa rounds that work better only from Europe/North America/Asia and Brazil.
World here I come But I love Argentina mostly, all of its territory, and probably half of its population personal characteristics. Mix Scandinavia with Argentina and then I'll get DNI for naturalizados In the meantime, only difference with residency is that you are "able" to vote for crook A or B.

R u FT Gaucho?

 

[Gaucho_ec]

Frequent Traveler? Just in the last year and a half. (TY cristina )
And perhaps you meant Flyer Talk? yes as well, but there's a couple of Gauchos, I'm _ec.

 

[ajoknoblauch]

Have you ever tried to buy euros through a bank in the US?

Have you ever tried to buy then with black money?

Very few banks in the States would have euros (or any other foreign currency) on hand, so you would probably have to request them in advance. There are always cambios at international airports in the US, though they tend to give poor rates. The only color they care about is green.

 

[Gringoboy]

If I had any doubt that this country is being run by an unbalanced woman...............
'We need to move towards the Utopia of an equal society'
'Argentina can't take any more wash n go'....................etc etc etc
http://www.lanacion.com.ar/1657621-las-frases-mas-fuertes-de-cristina-kirchner-en-su-regreso

 

[ARbound]

So sorry to hear you are struggling Why is it that you can´t leave if you don´t mind me asking? Do you own your apartment?

Well, I believe in paying back the money I owe my friend first, and if I left it would leave him in a bind for rent and all. Plus I
signed a lease and I really don't like bailing on contracts. I'm trying to be a better person since moving abroad. No, I rent.

I also do not have the money. I honestly have about $100 USD and then what ever is left after paying the bills each month.

Phone home? Explain and ask your family to help you out, I dunno...you basically need a plane ticket out and a way to get your friend his money...600USD-ish I guess. Do you have a credit card that gets you home?

Take stock, start again...we've all done it. Many years ago I left London in similar circumstances, after 5 yrs it was not working for me, affected me negatively and i had to cut and run with some debts (of friendship and financially). Man ,I do not like London still to this day, I feel the same way about that place (to live!...great vacation city!) that you do about B.A. Some times you need to take beat a hasty retreat to sort yourself out. Sometimes toughing it out doesn't do that much for you. Best decision I ever made was cutting and running, move backed to a smaller town, on to Dublin and then back out into the world happier, wiser and better off.

No shame in it, life's too short to suffer.

I don't really have a home. When I moved here I brought two suitcases with all my possessions in them, one was clothes. I could always go to the embassy
but I really couldn't handle going back to Canada. Plus I'd be homeless and penniless once I landed. I have something here which isn't much but it's better than nothing I guess?

I'm trying to move on but I need foreign money wherever that happens to be. At this rate of inflation/devaluation I'll be able to leave around 2017...

I agree...use your resources to leave now. If you feel like you're in a rut it may get harder and harder to go. I think we can lose our perspective and feel unempowered when we are in a place that sucks us dry. Best of luck to you - there are ways out, you can do it!

I know, I want to leave but I have to get the money first...

Not to make light of your unfortunate situation, but it does give new meaning to the term "AR bound."

I guess the good news is every day your 6000 ARS debt gets closer to your 100 USD savings.

Lol, this is true

 

[AmigoArtistico]

I agree...use your resources to leave now. If you feel like you're in a rut it may get harder and harder to go. I think we can lose our perspective and feel unempowered when we are in a place that sucks us dry. Best of luck to you - there are ways out, you can do it!

I've been in a rut for a long time. Maybe you're right. Maybe I should leave.

Anybody want to buy a used wife?

 

[AmigoArtistico]

Have you ever tried to buy euros through a bank in the US?

Have you ever tried to buy then with black money?

Yes, and it's very easy and completely legal. You don't have to fill out forms. You don't have to provide identification.

I even purchased Euros from a bank over the internet, and had them delivered to my door by Federal Express.

That's how the rest of the world works.

 

[Reneige]

ARbound, I am from Canada too. Your story sounds rough, sorry to hear. I can't imagine what your motivations were to move here without foreign currency savings, but as my rant is about to explain, you did indeed make a big mistake. I don't mean to sound condescending but if you had more knowledge of economics, you simply would not have done that.

Now to my point. There's a fair bit of economic illiteracy on this board. The current online shopping restrictions have nothing to do with collecting taxes, that's utter nonsense. The current government doesn't care about taxes, they have effective control of the central bank and can create however much money they need to pay for their "social programs". What they are attempting to due is prevent imports. That is also why they impose an otherworldly import duty of 50% (import duty averages about 15 percent in most of the developed world).

You see, there are two problems at play here. First, the government is trying to keep the peso artificially high in value. Most developed countries don't attempt to manage the value of their currency, they let the market decide, precisely how the blue market functions here. Managing a currencies value requires buying and selling it for other currencies. If you want your currency to be cheap, it's easy, the central bank simply creates loads of new money and sells if cheaper than the current market demands. For example, the central bank could easily create pesos and sell them for 15 pesos per dollar, the blue dollar market would disappear overnight. Instead, they are doing the opposite, so then need to buy dollars at 7 pesos per dollar (or sell pesos for 7 pesos per dollar).

But where do the dollars come from? The central bank of any nation or monetary union collects foreign reserves, these are primarily composed of the difference between exports and imports, "net exports". If a country sells more than it buys internationally, the difference between that amount get's accumulated as foreign currency reserves. By committing to buy pesos in the open market at 7 pesos per dollar, whilst the market is demanding a much higher price per dollar (12 in the blue market), obviously people exploit this difference by, for example, buying foreign goods using the official exchange rate, and then selling them domestically where they likely command a much higher value. That's why you can't buy dollars, any idiot would buy dollars for 7 pesos and immediately sell them for 12 and get rich doing nothing. I'm sure many people do using loopholes of some sort.

Anyway, this leads to the obvious problem of the central bank requiring dollars and not having any. The currently foreign reserves sit at just under 30 billion dollars, down 15 billion from a year ago. This country is effectively headed for a currency crisis and anyone with a finance or economics background (myself included) has known that for a long time. This country does not export more than it imports because economics growth anemic, inflation is rampant (because of the government's control of the central bank resulting in a ridiculous amount of new money being created for "social programs", and nobody is willing to invest foreign money here because they are afraid the government will expropriate their investment (think Repsol / YPF). Countries naturally will not always be next exporters, that's a mathematical impossibility, but most countries can rely on either foreign investment or at minimum, borrowing in foreign currencies, Argentina has neither of those options.

So what now? Well the people who run the central bank are not idiots, they know it's unsustainable. So they are attempting to prevent every possible means for exporting currency, ie purchasing foreign goods online, taking holidays abroad, or simply buying foreign currency. Meanwhile there is a controlled but totally obvious official devaluation occuring. Look at this graph, the devaluation is beyond exponential : https://www.google.c..._sm=93&ie=UTF-8

The government is buying time, possibly until next election, possibly to prevent social chaos (though that seems to already be starting) I have no idea. What is obvious is that the peso is headed WAY down and soon. This government will leave Argentina in a state of chaos, if it is not already in it.

There is definitely historical precedence for this. The most famous example was "black wednesday" in the UK. http://en.wikipedia....Black_Wednesday at the time, the UK government was attempting to fix the pound to the Deutschemark and it became a legendary failure and also made George Soros, at that time a hedge fund manager, the billionaire he is today.

Now the question is, why does the government not just allow the currency to free float the way it does in other countries? The currency would be much lower and for that reason Argentinian goods would be way cheaper worldwide and the exports would naturally decrease eliminating the foreign reserves crisis. Well, this would also result in a painful adjustment in the Argentinian people's standard of living as suddenly foreign goods become more expensive. That would basically kill the governments prospects of being reelected.

Unfortunately, the theme of the government here is sell the countries future in order to buy votes and patch the holes in the sinking ship wherever possible to postpone it from inevitably capsizing. But, the devaluation is inevitable, it is the law of gravity.

I came to Argentina to learn Spanish and it was my number one choice as an economics nerd, both to witness the insane economic policies of the government firsthand and because it would be cost effective. I have been here a few weeks and the blue dollar exchange rate and this new online shopping law are proving both of those foresight to be accurate.

 

[Bajo_cero2]

Reneige, the 50% import tax has been always like that, it has nothing to do with this government.

The custom's code was enacted in 1981.

The black wednesday has nothing to do with this.

The relevant precedent here is the hiperinflacion de 1989 (over 3000% ) as the consequence of a central bank that had no usd and a strong international debit (90 billion usd).

When they are obsessed with the reservas they have this precedent in mind.

Here you have the inflación in Argentina since 1945:
http://es.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lista_de_tasas_anuales_de_inflación_en_Argentina_desde_1945

Check it out 1989.