The economy will be dollarized soon... it has to be.

[on the brink]

... degrading step of actually physically using that shitty currency here.

If by "that shitty currency" you are referring to the US dollar, please note that it is accepted and coveted in most of the world.

 

[FrankPintor]

If by "that shitty currency" you are referring to the US dollar, please note that it is accepted and coveted in most of the world.

And more particularly, to the disadvantage of users of Dollars (so the US doesn't care), it's the most counterfeited. Cheap, low-tech printing and few protection mechanisms.

 

[aloevera]

The economy will be dollarized soon... it has to be.​

No, it doesn't have to be officially dollarized. That would be catastrophic for the economy and exports. Not to mention national sovereignty. And anyway, Kirchnerism won't do that, so if it did happen, it wouldn't be soon. But it won't happen. Dollarization may work for some small countries such as Panama and Ecuador, but it would undoubtedly be a MASSIVE FAILURE in Argentina. The more I think about it, the more I realize that Milei's proposed policies are all actually very harmful.
And regarding national sovereignty, I just recalled that Milei met with the US Ambassador a few months ago, discussed dollarization with him, and now it's big news; to me, it's quite clear who has cooked up this dangerous plan to destroy the Argentine economy and sovereignty.

 

[earlyretirement]

Somebody with a Visa Card is going to stand out on the corner and make purchases with a U.S. Visa card for people who don't have one And somebody will do it for next to no premium....making very little. But rest assured...someone will do it. Net result...dollarized economy.

But people that already have their savings in US dollars will simply go to a cueva or blue/black market and get many more pesos to purchase that item in pesos on your credit card.


For the everyday person (majority) that make their salaries in Argentine pesos and paying for things inside Argentina in pesos this doesn't benefit them having you purchase the item for them. Using an example of a pizza that might cost 4,600 pesos. That's around $10 US dollars at the MEP rate. So using this example, what would you propose you do for this person? You buy them the 4,600 pesos pizza on your credit card. You are charged around $10 US dollars on your foreign credit card. Then what? How much would you ask them to pay you back?

I have many really great friends in Argentina. Some like family and I did get extra credit cards for them from the USA. But they never use it INSIDE Argentina. They use it when they are making purchases abroad outside of Argentina. When they want to spend pesos inside Argentina they just exchange on the blue market for usually around a 15% premium.

 

[QuilmesSlo]

Full dollarization will be too large of a shock. I don't expect it, much as some of the arguments are compelling.

 

[argentinaorbust]

it's quite clear who has cooked up this dangerous plan to destroy the Argentine economy and sovereignty.

Argentina isn't a sovereign country though. The liberal BA agro oligarchy maintains firm allegiance to their European overlords.

Having Argentine agro products trade for their free market rate, which is what full dollarization would do, would threaten exports to their #1 agro export destination - the starving EU. Europoors would have to pay more for food & the Euro loyal BA oligarchs won't let that happen.

What percentage of the Argentine population, especially in BA, holds an EU passport? That's a really big problem for sovereignty, just like all those Russian passport holders in the Ukraine were a big problem.

Argentina never really got independence from Europe in the 19th century as most of the Americas did & it's the root of most of it's problems.

 

[sts7049]

peronism and the Ks destroyed the economy. don't put that on the "evil US"

 

[aloevera]

Argentina isn't a sovereign country though. The liberal BA agro oligarchy maintains firm allegiance to their European overlords.

Having Argentine agro products trade for their free market rate, which is what full dollarization would do, would threaten exports to their #1 agro export destination - the starving EU. Europoors would have to pay more for food & the Euro loyal BA oligarchs won't let that happen.

What percentage of the Argentine population, especially in BA, holds an EU passport? That's a really big problem for sovereignty, just like all those Russian passport holders in the Ukraine were a big problem.

Argentina never really got independence from Europe in the 19th century as most of the Americas did & it's the root of most of it's problems.

Argentina is indeed a sovereign country. What an incredibly delusional rant. None of that is true. European overlords? Starving EU? "Europoors"? Total nonsense.
Milei's dollarization proposition would mean completely surrendering monetary control to the US government, which is extremely bad for national sovereignty (unlike some folks merely holding Italian passports). Once monetary control is given away, the US government would have free reign over Argentina! It's incredible, you whine about "Euro loyal BA oligarchs" supposedly destroying the country while failing to mention this even more destructive effect of your coveted dollarization. Here, we see your ulterior motive and also Milei's: Argentina would become a colony of the US and completely dependent on it, thereby making the already-existing problems (such as insecurity and poverty) 10 million times worse. What a TERRIBLE idea!!! Dollarization is a scam, just like the trading courses that Milei is promoting on Instagram!

 

[FrankPintor]

I don't know about Euro or American overlords, and I don't think it's even the most pressing problem if Argentina is dollarized. I've lived for several years each in 2 countries that dollarized, Ecuador and Venezuela, and neither makes an attractive long-term case.

Ecuador is the more orderly of the two cases, as you'd expect, with dollarization coordinated with the US. Dollarization has turned it into a high-cost base country, with little FDI, Prices inflate due to the difficulty in finding small change, they get rounded (up, of course) to the nearest 1 or 5 USD. The banknotes deteriorate rapidly (I'm sure, due in part to the low quality), so the Ecuadorean central bank has the added expenditure of taking the damaged ones out of circulation and sending them all to the US to be replaced.

Venezuela's case is a mess, with no coordination with the US, so there's no mechanism to replace damaged notes, it's your loss if you've got one. The country has inflation in both USD and Bolivar, and is quite possibly already the most expensive Latin American country to live in (people survive with foreign remittances, "caja CLAP", and various subsidies. Low denomination banknotes are almost unavailable, again all prices are rounded up, contributing to inflation.

To link the huge pool of Argentinian dollars kept under mattresses here, plus dollarize the money in circulation, would be an enormous undertaking, and it can't really be done without official coordination with the US, which might very well not be forthcoming. Would the US like to add some $300bn, plus $50bn Peso circulation to the active USD circulation (I'm not sure how much of that is actually physically hiding under the mattresses here)? Where would we get small change from (nobody uses anything other than $100 notes here)? Plus, the tsunami of counterfeits courtesy of our friends in Peru would be a sight to behold. Before Venezuela stopped printing paper money, the almost worthless banknotes were scooped up, transported to Peru, washed, and reprinted as Dollars (a literal case of the currency being worth less than the paper it was printed on). If the Argentinian banknotes are retired, where would they go?

Milei & Co. just want soundbites, nobody is thinking this through.

 

[Stantucker]

Argentina is indeed a sovereign country. What an incredibly delusional rant. None of that is true. European overlords? Starving EU? "Europoors"? Total nonsense.
Milei's dollarization proposition would mean completely surrendering monetary control to the US government, which is extremely bad for national sovereignty (unlike some folks merely holding Italian passports). Once monetary control is given away, the US government would have free reign over Argentina! It's incredible, you whine about "Euro loyal BA oligarchs" supposedly destroying the country while failing to mention this even more destructive effect of your coveted dollarization. Here, we see your ulterior motive and also Milei's: Argentina would become a colony of the US and completely dependent on it, thereby making the already-existing problems (such as insecurity and poverty) 10 million times worse. What a TERRIBLE idea!!! Dollarization is a scam, just like the trading courses that Milei is promoting on Instagram!

Nothing like the pot calling the kettle black. Loved your non ranting, non delusional "comment."