Having lived here for 8 of the last 11 years, having friends in every strata of this society, I have a pretty good idea of what's happened.
First, the only new jobs the government itself created are government jobs. With many sinecures for the friends of those in power, BTW. And inclusion of the poor in the middle class? That's easily done here by lowering the poverty line, which is real easy to do by augmenting the pay (well below inflation) and even keeping the poverty level the same or even raising it a bit. INDEC is a very trustworthy institution...not.
Why is it that everyone who should be "included" (poor, middle class, etc.) are struggling so hard? Could it be the unsustainable social programs that have been instituted, for which the government can't pay without printing tons of money and making things even worse? The rich and the government benefit from printing money - they're the ones who usually get it first, before the insertion of the extra money causes inflation. Certainly not the poor and the middle class. It wipes out the poor and middle class ability to save money and buy things they need (much less buy luxuries).
Are there more high level jobs that have come into being as a result of the policies of this administration? More opportunities for all those graduates coming out of universities here? Of course, the majority of the people who my sister-in-law knew in high school went on to work for a living - while living with their families because they can't support themselves on what they earn.. Only some 10 of her class of 50 went on to university. A couple of those have already dropped out because their education was so poor in high school that they can't keep up and don't have the drive to figure a way to make it.
This government thinks it knows what it's doing, but it has turned a not-too-bad situation after the default of 2001-2002 (and the theft [nice little name like "corralito"] of all those dollars from the population at the time) into another economic disaster for this country by isolationist/protectionist policies within a country that doesn't have the infrastructure nor the policies to allow business to flourish - those evil businesses that employ people gainfully, instead of the government taking what tax money they collect and investing it into infrastructure and such, they employ a vast percentage of people. Businesses, the same institutions which could contribute more tax money, as well as the people they employ. The government doesn't make money (printing money isn't "making" money, just creates units of currency which are worth less and less with each printing) - all those people and programs are drags on an economy that is in trouble and they continue to make it worse.
My sister-in-law is studying international business at UADE. After seeing how she was taught in high school, I was dreading what they were going to teach her in UADE. UADE is fairly expensive, and her career choice is one of the most expensive UADE has to offer. I was extremely relieved to hear her words from the last two weeks as their classes have had the benefit of Argentine businessmen from large companies come talk to them. All three of them had the same exact message: "You have to understand that anything you have learned here in the last few years should be pretty much ignored. We Argentinos have a horrible reputation throughout the world of taking advantage of others, of unfair business practices, of doing what we want to do, in other countries, in a manner of extreme arrogance. As a part of the international business community you will have a great hurdle to jump when it comes to fitting in to the real business world and gaining the trust of foreign business folk."
I don't blame the people too much here at this point because they are recipients of decades of propaganda that teach unsustainable ideas and blame everyone but themselves for the situation they're in, and Cristina takes advantage of the emotion and ignorance to get her way. She's certainly not an idiot when it comes to pulling the heartstrings of her fellow citizens and after so much indoctrination it's a much easier job to convince the masses that she's "fighting the good fight." She manages to keep them from realizing how much better off they'd be if the government concerned itself with having a fair and equitable court system that punishes everyone equally when they cross the law instead of passing punitive (to businesses, and therefore also to the workers) measures that inhibit businesses from expanding and providing opportunities.
I don't think Cristina and her ilk are idiots, although their actions seem "idiotic" when one tries to make sense of what they are doing with a reference to how things are done in many other parts of the world. Every time someone here wants to investigate corruption, they find themselves removed from their jobs and attacked, or AFIP is called on them to review their own financial dealings, but nothing ever seems to get to Cristina and those of her friends who are in power. On and on...
I have permanent residency. I pay taxes. I am here legally and in accordance with the laws of this country. I came here in 2006 when the country was reasonably run and benefited from that, and have watched Cristina make things worse with each passing month pretty much since she took office (or at least since Nestor died), and have watched the government take what seem to be rushed actions, as if they were written down on the back of a napkin while having dinner, and which have worse and worse consequences for the future recovery of this country.
I had thought about getting citizenship here, but I probably won't initiate something along those lines until I get a feel for whether she's going to make things even worse. There are tens of thousands of really, really poor people living in the Villa about 5 blocks from my apartment - I wonder what they're going to feel like after their heroine's policies make life difficult even for them, and I wonder what that situation is going to look like - something that didn't exist in such quantity in 2001-2002.
No way I respect Cristina and what she's doing to this country. And I have a right to my opinions and to voice them, no matter whether anyone else thinks that respecting a person because they are in that post is bad form. At one point I had chosen to tie myself to Argentina and now I feel betrayed, and I don't have the right to vote with anything except my opinion (at least as far as national elections go). This is supposed to be a democracy, regardless of the government's high-handed dealings (and the alleged theft by persons in this government, in one form or another) with its citizens and those exterior entities who are forced to interact with the country. The discontent should be allowed to voice their opinions in a country that is supposedly run democratically.
Wild Horses, If you've been here for the last 11 years, you sure took a different lesson from it than the great majority of people I know.
with 60 casualties
