NY Post: What's the deal with Buenos Aires?

[soul]

She really summed up the BA experience very, very well. I recently lived there for 1 year and still go back and forth from NYC to BA. What she said about all the scams going on was spot on. From the corrupt taxi drivers to the rude waiters who shortchange you every chance they get. That said, it's still what you make it and I have a lot of fun there... But it's all the scamming and scamming and scamming going on there that REALLY does give BA a bad rap.

Dave
http://mindpetals.com

 

[treborbb]

I lived and worked in Bs As for 5 years, I'm told the average is 3 years. The happiest day of my life was the day I left. Sure the tinted glass's for the first six months where exciting, but then everything went down hill. I even was stopped taking the few items I wanted to keep from my apartment being told by customs, you can only take your personal cloths. So in the end I had to "smuggle" them to Uruguay and left from there. I also had to 25,000us "plata" cash to "arrange" for the signing of my escritura and that took 10 months. Anyway who buys in Argentina should be aware of the new regulations in that you now need an Argentian to sign a POA saying they will be responsible for any TAXES they think you should pay over the next 10 years. As the Wall Street Journal once wrote, we can guarantee two thinks if you invest in Argentina, one you will lose all your money and two your shirt, so be warned. The country is going to the dogs, the government is a joke, one of these days again and it will be soon, watch Argentina crash.

 

[steveinbsas]

The country is going to the dogs, the government is a joke, one of these days again and it will be soon, watch Argentina crash.

The big question is which country will crash first: Argentina or the USA?

 

[Carolargentina]

And what's the deal with New York and the american dream? Where people under 35 only can afford to live with roommates, where university education no longer means a better salary, where young people don't get married because they can't economically support a family and just end up living in Buenos Aires as expats. And not in the best neighborhoods as the article says, but in not too fancy ones, with a few roommates. They can hardly buy decent food in Buenos Aires supermarkets, not to mention they can't go to a restaurant or a disco-club as often as they'd like. This article is only accurate if you are a tourist over 45 and staying here for one or two weeks. (If you are in between 35 and 45 and in NY you are working more than reasonable long hours, no vacations in more than 2 years time to be able to pay a mortgage that you may eventually end up loosing those folks during the subprime crises. You may have a miserable love life or no personal life at all besides being in front of a computer interacting in social networks, have some kind of addiction problem and perhaps end up with bigger mental issues, you have been sucked in by THE SYSTEM, LOL!)
An argie girl

 

[SaraSara]

The big question is which country will crash first: Argentina or the USA?

What kind of crash are you expecting? Just curious.

 

[laureltp]

Damn! Where's that supermarket? I guess if you shop at the mercado central (which I'd like to do sometime).

Anyways, I wanted to get my highhorse on my soapbox:

It sounds really belittling saying look how much food I can buy with 20 dollars! What a tourist can or cannot do here shouldn't really matter; what you should care about (if I may say) is the buying power of a local salary.

Well I'm at it, I'm sure you could also go to Ethiopia and eat for even cheaper. Why be wasting all your money here?

I'm just sayin.

Exactly! I agree it's a misleading statement.

I had a friend visit me and I told her I wanted her to enjoy the city but that we were on a tight budget right now so we'd have to be careful about the amount of money we spent on going out. She couldn't understand why, she kept saying "but everything is so cheap..." I kept trying to explain to her that cheap if you are a tourist with US dollars, but expensive if you live here with pesos, somehow she didn't get the concept so I just stopped trying to explain it to her.

But I don't think this article was addressed to people who wanted to come here to live, probably it's more for people who just want to visit 6 months and move on.

 

[ghost]

The big question is which country will crash first: Argentina or the USA?

Good question............Argentina crashed in 1918 and never did recover. The US is in the process of crashing. Learn Chinese, fast.

 

[SaraSara]

Articles like this one are written to make a quick dollar. They are not informative pieces, just entertainment. A friend of mine writes such pieces - she cranks them up in a couple of hours. Her main concern is finding a title catchy enough to get the attention of a paper's editor.

 

[va2ba]

I don't know about you all, but I can't read this articles anymore without it bothering me. This guy was here for a week, maybe two and he acts like he owns the whole damn city. I don't think people have a right to complain about something they don't fully understand (yes, this is a society of stiff upper lips when you go past the tourist hotspots) which takes more than 6 months.

 

[ssr]

The big question is which country will crash first: Argentina or the USA?

Good question............Argentina crashed in 1918 and never did recover. The US is in the process of crashing. Learn Chinese, fast.

Yawn.

I don't know about you all, but I can't read this articles anymore without it bothering me. This guy was here for a week, maybe two and he acts like he owns the whole damn city. I don't think people have a right to complain about something they don't fully understand (yes, this is a society of stiff upper lips when you go past the tourist hotspots) which takes more than 6 months.

Well. after three years in BA, I think the guy was pretty much spot on until the nonsense about how "Buenos Aires is a feeling, a state of mind" that "sucks you in." Seemed like he was just trying to end his article on a positive note and tossed in the kind of BS filler that Lonely Planet writes about every place in the world.

My favorite bit: "Empanadas are not a cuisine, people. They are Hot Pockets. Slightly less scary Hot Pockets." Hah!