Shame on you Argentina

[DA]

Shame on you Argentina for being such a great country with incredible beauty and possibilities and look how screwed up you are.
I live here and have been for years now and I love it, but i represent a very small percentage that live on dollars and because of that life here for me is great.
My question is why is Argentina so screwed up? does anyone have the answer? will it ever change? why are other south american countries ahead with so much less resources? what would you do if you ruled this country??

 

[kikedeolivos]

..My question is why is Argentina so screwed up? does anyone have the answer? ...

Peron and peronismo = Cancer

 

[Napoleon]

I thought that this was going to be a misplaced reply to the pizza thread.

"Shame on you Argentina for having such lousy pizza."

PS- Argentina isn't too much different from the rest of Latin America.

 

[smirkypants]

Muckraker....

 

[Joe]

As Napolean said it is not much different from the rest of Latin America... But it used to be different. Argentina was perhaps the only first world country in Latin America - now it is third world. How many countries have gone from first world status to third world? You can see evidence in this in how widespread beautiful building and apartments are that were built 50 to 100 years ago. You won't find such grand buildings in the quantity that exists in Buenos Aires anywhere else in South America or even North America. Somewhere Argentina lost its way - Peronism...

 

[rrptownley]

Erm, if you're looking for an actual answer it would probably be best to look towards the classic model of statism. Argentina at 1900, being one of the richest countries in the world after the magic mix of endless beefherds, the invention of refrigiated oceanic ships and a hungry Europe had all the assets to evolve into an economic and manufacturing powerhouse. Instead the succesive socialist governments decidided to pump money into the declining beef industry for the beggining of the century, slowly wittling down its funds, and quite in vain for the emerging beef industries of the US, Australia and south Africa would ultimately prove to be more competitive. So at the middle of the century there was a defunct beef market, broke government and no foundations for an economic or manufacturing alternative. The argentines had become so used to the government handing everything to them in the form of incentives and tax breaks (peron, buttkisser), didn't have the steel to set up any new industry. All public services had been seized by the government to control prices and make revenue, had now been run into the ground by mismanagement and were not serving the people. Bad social conditions lead to unrest, succesive presidents, coups, dictatorship, bang wallop. Big reset after the horrors of dictatorship and war, and now you've got democracy upon a people who have deeply ingrained distrust of government and are only still learning how to fend for themselves against foreign competition and with public services and red tape that still hasn't been remedied.

Sorry that was so long. And probably not so right. But it's my take.
Probably

 

[DA]

Muckraker....

Excellent.

 

[windy]

Money goes where there is growth and good returns. Last centurary it drained from Argentina into the USA in many forms of capital flight. But now good returns in the US apear to be a thing of the past. And the capital and the jobs are leaving, the jobs to China and the capital and finance to the far east.
So is Argentinas past about to become the future for the USA and Europe.
It would seem very possible China and India hold all the aces at the moment.They have unlimeted cheap labor. And in Chinas case they have the US $$$$$$ by the balls and can send it into free fall just if they stop buying more US debt. Imagine if they started selling what they already hold???????
There are so many great things and so many bad things about Argentina,can iit every be fixed??????. I hope so.

 

[KatharineAnn]

It's a much more complex question that you can really answer on a forum...there are countless academic discussions and essays that treat this topic and no one has "the answer". In the early 1900s the USA and Argentina were very similar in many ways - what happened?

Also just keep in mind that it is precisely because Argentina is "so screwed up" that you are able to live such a great life on your dollars here.

 

[Lucas]

Shame on you Argentina for being such a great country with incredible beauty and possibilities and look how screwed up you are.
I live here and have been for years now and I love it, but i represent a very small percentage that live on dollars and because of that life here for me is great.
My question is why is Argentina so screwed up? does anyone have the answer? will it ever change? why are other south american countries ahead with so much less resources? what would you do if you ruled this country??

My question is why is Argentina so screwed up?...

Among others reasons (internal-political) this is one of them.

School of the Americas This link was picked at random, there are hundreds with similar content or more descriptive but maybe to shocking to post here. Please do your Googling for more information.

Two of SOA’s more notorious alumni, Generals Roberto Viola and Leopoldo Galtieri, both of whom trained at SOA in 1981, went on to become dictators during the “Dirty War”, in which 30,000 Argentines were put to death. The generals were assisted by five other SOA grads and when civilian rule was restored Viola was sentenced to 17 years for his crimes. Who’s to say, though, that he learned his grisly trade from the Pentagon? He could have gotten his ideas just as well from studying Hitler’s “Mein Kampf,” right?

When Peron was in charge Argentina went to become one of the most prosperous nations, innovating in the technology fields and humanitarian advances on her neglected population, hospitals, health, schools, rights for women welfare and social security for children, families and workers were implemented, it was the envy of every Latin American country there were huge advances on those times, but then Peron was overthrown by a coup d'état in (1955) and with the ending of the second world war 10 years before, Argentina started a cycling era of interferences product of the cold war and the territorial geopolitical interest and ideology by certain countries, Argentina become virtually one among the rest of Central and South America, what commonly is call the meat in the sandwich.

Below is part of a documentary by Australian world-renowned journalist, author and documentary filmmaker John Pilger, take a look...

War on Democracy

Will it ever change?

Well all depends if geopolitical interest change and the political and financial "owners" let her have a fair go, probably will change if LatinAmerica is united and can force a change, but the questions is...will be the rest of the sub-continent constant in their endeavor to succeed as an united block?, because if not Argentina and the rest will continue as it is or worse.