Welcome To The Dictatorship Of Happiness

[Bajo_cero2]

Bajo, I warn you that if it turns out that you're actually Marcos Peña trolling us all, I will come over and beat you.

Ben, disagreement is healthy.

You are free to come for a coffe at my office any time to confirm something obvious. At the same time, i can confirm that you are not an employee of a call center trolling for the regime of the dictatorship of happiness.

 

[tiggsbenoit]

If I offended you.. urr ummm is it possible your leap/best guess at understanding me caused you to be offended enough to just hurl away. Which means you lead yourself to such a response and post. My guess is you scanned my post and then just started a guessing game between your ears and then blurted your post out. I think it is best for tourist to refrain from assumptions that lead them to being offended. Just my 2 cents.

Let us evaluate your best guesses shall we?

1. I am not Argentina I left when they cut off the USD because I could see the writing on wall. But looking at moving back with my wife in about 6 months as she wants to go home.

2. Ad hominems - interesting terminology. The Doc is a Quack bottom line and I do not respect anything that supports or endorses what K and clan have brought about in Argentina in the last several years. And in reality the Quak Doc starting hurling the hate my way some time ago. Just for the record.

3. Rabid Republican - Well that could be taken as an insulted and clearly demonstrates your guessing game or assumptions could not be further from the truth. While I do hold some ideals embraced by republican thinking I surely to not agree with the vast majority of the thinking that is going on in the republican world at this time. I would have to be very dumb to do so. I could say the same for the democrats as well. Just the fact that current pole leader has gained so much popularity spewing out the level of fear, hate etc has amazed me and causes me to have great concern for my home land.

I could write more but we can just let this rest here. Thanks for sharing your insights even if they were completely off the mark. Enjoy Argentina!

I have been going to BA on and off for 5 years now. Not that I enjoy it at all. Been checking in here for a bit more than that, so I am not as new as one might think. I guess by now you must have formed an opinion of the current gov. My friends tell me it is a repeat of the militares. I personally think the guy is really really dangerous and is going to bring this place that was balancing so finely crashing down, while he enriches himself and buddies and then moves off somewhere to enjoy his bootie. There are thousands of people off work which impacts on business. The devaluation together with inflation, and state repression is making for a sorry mess. El gabinete he put together speaks volumes. And .. I don t know, re my post, maybe I was having a bad day. Sorry if offended people.

 

[Gringoboy]

I have been going to BA on and off for 5 years now. Not that I enjoy it at all. Been checking in here for a bit more than that, so I am not as new as one might think. I guess by now you must have formed an opinion of the current gov. My friends tell me it is a repeat of the militares. I personally think the guy is really really dangerous and is going to bring this place that was balancing so finely crashing down, while he enriches himself and buddies and then moves off somewhere to enjoy his bootie. There are thousands of people off work which impacts on business. The devaluation together with inflation, and state repression is making for a sorry mess. El gabinete he put together speaks volumes. And .. I don t know, re my post, maybe I was having a bad day. Sorry if offended people.

Your friends tell you it's a repeat of the military dictatorship? What kind of friends have you got?
You think Macri is dangerous? He's been in power just over a month which isn't really enough time to bring everything crashing down, not yet anyway.
Macri is going to get rich and dole out the winnings to his friends and cronies? Like the last lot you mean, Tiggsbenoit? By the time they've unravelled the spider's web of theft carried out by the previous regime it'll make the Great Train Robbery look like a charity event.
State repression? Do you mean freedom of exp<b></b>ression and government press conferences? Or do you mean asking a question on government policy and the president shaming you in public and setting the dogs on you?

 

[Noesdeayer]

Gringoboy:
Very true! Couldn't have said it better myself.
tiggsbennoit :
This has got to be a "put on"..I was here from 1979-83 that's almost almost all of the Military Dictatoriship.
The comparision you make is total nonsense. How old were your friends during that time? What did they experience?

 

[ElQueso]

Well, for someone who comes here on and off for 5 years - I'm sure you had a lot of direct experience living with the previous regime and its day-to-day consequences for people who were not tied to Cristina, to know how much better they were than Macri will be in the next 4 years. Nothing like not being immersed continuously for a decade of the previous regime to not get just how badly corrupt, arrogant and dangerous to actual freedom of so much except exp<b></b>ression of militant political rage that they were.

This place "balancing so finely" with the previous administration? You mean the 30%+ inflation (an undeclared tax on the non-governmental corporations and the private population of the country) and dwindling central reserves the previous folk started with their policies? Not to mention draconian currency and import/export controls in order to continue to cheat the people of the country while they imported ephedrine so Mexican drug cartels could make methamphetamine (yeah, isn't it funny they just "by accident" left ephedrine off the list of proscribed drugs that could not be imported, even when that list is an internationally-coordinated list and people like her chief of staff were likely behind it - let's not forget the thought was brought up in her reign that her first campaign may have been financed by these drug cartels). Sweetheart deals with various companies (including the state-run airline and Cristina's own hotel in Calafate) that was costing the people of Argentina millions of dollars that they didn't have per day over years? Thousands of people fired from the government - who were hired by Cristina, some 4500 in the last few days of her administration? Hell, Argentina's government employed more people per capita than the US.

Oh, but all of that is OK because Cristina told us, repeatedly, over the emergency broadcast system, which she co-opted illegally, that she was "for the poor". That she was the head of a country where there was less poverty than Germany (OK, Cristina didn't say that particular one - it was one of her ministers) as she fired all the previous people from INDEC and installed her own force there, which destroyed the policies and procedures of estimating the real shape of the economy so bad it will take the better part of a year to get back to reporting properly. never mind that public schools are a joke here and have not nearly enough infrastructure and even teachers who give a crap to actually educate those poor.

And funny enough - the ballot boxes that were spotted pre-loaded with votes for the FpV, or the many people who went to cast their vote and found out, strangely enough, that they had already voted - and what? just didn't remember having done so? - couldn't have had anything to do with the slim 51.5 - 48.5 margin that Macri won by (even with the possible fraud, that's still 3 points - not such a slim margin). No, because Cristina proved over and over again that she was so honest and really cared about the people over whom she governed.

Tiggsbenoit, your friends spout the same line as La Campora. Your friends would seem to be militant politicals whose goal was to remake Argentina in their image, was stopped by the sanity of the majority of the population, yet feel like they must continue to harass the government at every step even though they were voted out of power - at least executive power. Let's see how the congressional elections go in two years.

But yes, we will all admit - Macri is evil. Macri is the new Magnetto. Macri is going to re-institute the military dictatorship any day now.

Guess Argentina won't be such a nice place to visit any more

 

[EJLarson]

I have been going to BA on and off for 5 years now. Not that I enjoy it at all. Been checking in here for a bit more than that, so I am not as new as one might think. I guess by now you must have formed an opinion of the current gov. My friends tell me it is a repeat of the militares. I personally think the guy is really really dangerous and is going to bring this place that was balancing so finely crashing down, while he enriches himself and buddies and then moves off somewhere to enjoy his bootie. There are thousands of people off work which impacts on business. The devaluation together with inflation, and state repression is making for a sorry mess. El gabinete he put together speaks volumes. And .. I don t know, re my post, maybe I was having a bad day. Sorry if offended people.

At least you acknowledge that your previous post was offensive to many - it was.

Now you might want to work on an ignorance-reduction program before you share any more thoughts about the country you visit even though your summary "Not that I enjoy it at all," pretty much calibrates your position. "Reading for education" could be a good plan.

 

[Pensador]

I have been going to BA on and off for 5 years now. Not that I enjoy it at all. Been checking in here for a bit more than that, so I am not as new as one might think. I guess by now you must have formed an opinion of the current gov. My friends tell me it is a repeat of the militares. I personally think the guy is really really dangerous and is going to bring this place that was balancing so finely crashing down, while he enriches himself and buddies and then moves off somewhere to enjoy his bootie. There are thousands of people off work which impacts on business. The devaluation together with inflation, and state repression is making for a sorry mess. El gabinete he put together speaks volumes. And .. I don t know, re my post, maybe I was having a bad day. Sorry if offended people.

I can only tell you that your friend has possibly been rendered delusion by the propaganda he has allowed over ride his natural process of thinking and arriving at conclusions. I would suggest you take everything your friend tells you and mentally reject it and then do the homework for yourself and arrive at your own conclusions regarding both the current and past presidents and administrations in Argentina. Then you might have something to post about that is relevant and factual.

Also read the posts of El Queso he does his homework and writes very well you could learn allot from his posts alone.

 

[ben]

Ben, disagreement is healthy.

You are free to come for a coffe at my office any time to confirm something obvious. At the same time, i can confirm that you are not an employee of a call center trolling for the regime of the dictatorship of happiness.

I am most definitely not against disagreement, I rather think my posting history bears that out. There is, though, a limit to positions I am willing to debate, past which point it's time to shrug one's shoulders and 'agree to disagree'.

While I am fairly certain that meeting you will dispel any possibility that you are Marcos Peña - that was a joke, though I did not precede it with a 'humor' as you are wont to do - I am not sure how meeting me will disabuse you of the notion that I work in a call center. Particularly if my posting history has not done so.

 

[Ries]

OMG, you win! Can I get a gin and tonic?

I recommend the locally made Apostle Gin.
Many local bartenders have been using to great success lately.
Quite tasty.

 

[Bajo_cero2]

Nice, more political persecution to the son of the former President, who is a congressman:
http://www.pagina12....2016-01-22.html

And more, arrest included:
http://www.pagina12....2016-01-22.html

Ahhhh, I almost forgot it: they have a secret manual that describes the procedure for firing people, among other jewels it states to make fake informs about their performance and and sets the litigation risk of employee layoffs...wait! they were firing gnocchi right? It seems not!
http://www.eldestape...ajadores-n13939

The media law and the DNU regarding AFSCA are at the Interamerican Court of Human RIght, the public defendant asked for the immediate intervention of the Court:
http://www.pagina12.com.ar/diario/ultimas/20-290899-2016-01-22.html