Pesos in the US=No Good

[davonz]

should i be scared?

Scared of what ?

I was in zimbabwe when they had really bad inflation (from what i remember it got up to 1m%) and the zim $ was worthless, and they had controls on buying foreign currencies etc.

Being a foreigner with US$ it wasnt a problem. I would only exchange what i needed for a day or 2, apart from the fact that the exchange rate changed all the time, but also you needed a bag to carry enough money around for your daily needs.
The official exchange rate was around $120,000 to a US$1, but i was getting around $420,000 on the black market.

The problem was for the locals who had zim$ and earned zim$, as soon as they got paid they were spending it on whatever they could, as tomorrow your wages would buy less than today.
My advice if you are a local, is buy what ever major foreign currency you can, or invest in something - stocks/gold/fridges/goats/wine - bacially anything that will last and not lose value.

I very much doubt its going to get anywhere near as bad as zim as the gov here isnt killing farming or major industries (not yet anyways), just pricing them out of the international market, or killing foreign investment.. but the locals are going to feel it with their spending power decreasing. Even i am feeling it, and becoming a more tight shopper.. I go to coto, dia and disco just to sniff out the best prices, and it is amazing how big a difference there is in prices.

 

[stew]

where is the best place to change dollars to paso MIA or EZE ?

 

[AlexanderB]

Neither.

 

[Carlosgreat]

I usually exchange in West Palm Beach Airport http://maps.google.com/maps/place?c...ed=0CF8Q-gswAQ&sa=X&ei=jaWAT7W4MI6a8gaZ7pCRAw they took pesos a month ago ...travelex

 

[YanquiGallego]

FYI- travelex is the company at the ATL airport that informed me they were not doing anying with pesos any more for the time being.

 

[gpop]

Two problems with that:
1. You can make a graph that looks like that with any two numbers as long as the greater number is at the top of the graph and the lesser at the bottom.
2. Those numbers are all based on imaginary values. We are not able to see any data that shows the true vale of ARS; I suspect that it's a LOT worse than we imagine.

The two numbers in this case are the ones that this thread is referring to, and not some arbitrary comparison. The gestalt in the progression suggests a fairly hopeless steady stream downwards, not some kind of cyclical rise and fall as you would have with, say, $US/$CAN or $US/$AUD.

And weather those figures are imaginary or not, XE comes out on top when I do a Google search on 'currency exchange' so I took the first one. I would imagine that other people would do the same and might be inclined to believe this reference, then go verify this at a bank. How can anyone know the TRUE value of any of the data being reported in this country?
XE was just a starting point.

 

[LuvBA]

where is the best place to change dollars to paso MIA or EZE ?

if you are in BA and need to sell dollars, agencias the cambio are currently paying about 5 pesos a piece. dont change them at the airport. This goverment implemented these absurd regulations to force people to trade in "blue"!

 

[lexilein]

Same goes for Austria = no exchange. Last week it would still be possible to exchange Arg. Pesos in Germany...

 

[John.St]

The two numbers in this case are the ones that this thread is referring to, and not some arbitrary comparison.

Anyone with a spreadsheet can create their own curve using the exchange rates US$/AR$ January 1914 through January 2012

http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anexo:Cotización_histórica_de_monedas_de_la_Argentina

 

[dmbailey]

So this is really really disturbing to me, as I am returning to the states next week with about US$1000 worth of pesos from my apartment's security deposit....does this pretty much mean that I'm losing a grand because of this!?