Who has the best crystal ball?

[steveinbsas]

my experience has been that its way too early to guess.
who, for example, would have guessed "Trump" 20 months before the last election?

Ann Coulter predicted "to hysterical laughter" that Trump would be the Republican nominee on June 19, 2015

 

[Ries]

Well, there you go.
Who is Ann telling us will be the next president?
Sounds like a sure fire bet, to me.

(You do it, and get rich- I will sit this one out)

 

[steveinbsas]

Who is Ann telling us will be the next president?
Sounds like a sure fire bet, to me.

I don't think Ann will predict who will be the next president until some time in 2022...if it's obvious enough to her at that point.

For now, I think the odds are very high who she thinks will win the 2020 election, in spite of the fact that she recently called Trump a "wimp" for not declaring a national emergency in order to fund the fence.

 

[expat0tree]

Sounds like a sure fire bet, to me.

I believe that was a total guess and a wish on behalf of Ann the devotee of Mr. Trump because nobody, back in 2015, not in their wildest dreams, thought of Russians going to the extend of pouring millions of dollars into online troll farms in order to sway the opinion of so many dumb-ass misinformed American online users. This time around the Chinese, the Iranians and many others will try out the social media to influence public opinion by distorting facts except that this time around the department of cyber security is more than ready and willing to slap sanctions on anyone who tries this again.

 

[Rich One]

Speaking of which, I was wondering why there are so many new confiterias and panaderias opening up and the cleaning lady in the building told me they are hoarding flour and sugar! believe it or not but supposedly they are filling entire rooms with various grains and raw ingredients. I asked her if the bugs aren't going to eat it and she said that the bugs won't eat it as fast as inflation will so clearly there is a lot of fear on the streets, people can smell it coming.

Many more family owned panaderias de Barrio, are closing, can't afford the electricity and gas bills for the ovens...as shown on TV...!

 

[expat0tree]

Many more family owned panaderias de Barrio, are closing, can't afford the electricity and gas bills for the ovens...as shown on TV...!

Absolutely, but from what I gather, many of them are also shutting down due to poor management and waste of resources, there are ways to save on power consumption if things are done correctly and honestly, often times they are trying to sell poor quality half rotten or broken things to customers as a way to reduce their own waste but without thinking that the customer may not come back again, this is hurting their own sales. As a customer this happens to me with verduleros all the time, I hate most of them and go only to ones that had proven themselves as clean and honest. Argentine business owners need to re-invent themselves if they are serious about surviving in the modern day free-market economy, it might be creeping slowly but it will catch up eventually, many of the retailers are still completely oblivious to e-commerce and the online customer feedback is already changing the way that people buy things.

 

[Rich One]

Panaderias .. the cost of Flower has doubled or tripled, creating havoc.
Verdulerias a different issue too long to discuss. Bolivian owned verdulerias will not change in the near future..

 

[Pensador]

Who would have guessed Trump 20 hours before the election?

I think the Dems got cocky and thought they had it in the bag so we now have what we have. Hillary was obviously a very bad choice and looking at the repubs running umm who in their right mind is going to vote for Ted Cruz etc...? The whole thing was a circus and it still is.

 

[Pensador]

What are your thoughts on the IMF intervention?

 

[expat0tree]

What are your thoughts on the IMF intervention?

IMF is a for-profit international organization consisting of 189 countries, they promote sustainable economic growth but they are not responsible for such growth once a country such as Argentina decides to borrow beyond its means. All IMF can do is advice within the legal framework but without the political will to carry out their recommendations, no nation should blame them for failing to grow the economy with the borrowed funds, which is precisely what is currently happening to Argentina. Another point to make is that IMF cannot care less about Argentina's corruption and waste of borrowed money, they did their best to recommend but unfortunately, Argentines see the fund as predatory and irresponsible, totally missing the fact that Argentina is the one borrowing from the fund. It's like blaming the bank for the defaulted property because the owner failed to fulfill his payment obligations and now it's the fault of the greedy bank.

To me what's worst about the whole IMF situation is the fact that there was no referendum on whether Argentina should borrow or not, Macri's administration is going to leave and all this debt will hang over the heads of average citizens for a very long time while not being able to lift the austerity measures, in order to repay the debt and the interest on the debt Argentine economy needs to be growing at least 4% a year for the next several years.