Will the election increase expatrism?

[soulskier]

Hola fellow defecters, I would be interested to know the board's feelings about the upcoming US election and if the results could make for more Americans moving out of the country?
I decided to post here because in the last week, I have received emails from 3 different friends stating that if McCain wins, they are moving.
Your thoughts?

 

[kenmtraveller]

Well, none of my friends have said anything about that. But seriously, I think Democrats have to ask themselves: If we can't win an election after the republicans wreck the economy, rack up huge amounts of debt, get us in multiple wars over 9/11 but fail to get Osama Bin Laden, set up a gulag, and torture hundreds of people, then when exactly do we have a chance of winning? And if we can't win, then what are we doing living in a country with the sort of people who want these things? I asked myself that question almost 4 years ago, after Bush got re-elected. And now, I live in Buenos Aires. Ken

 

[Stanexpat]

Could increase expats until once here they realise the government in the states is actually 10 better on its worse day than Argentina on its best.
It will also make those who were dumb enough to move to Argentina for this reason realise how good they had it back home. I am one of those dumb ones who now has a much better appreciation of the USA.
Actually I think both candidates represent reasnonable choices. This is one of the most interesting races in memory. I personally think this is the Democrats year, Obama should win.

 

[soulskier]

Interesting take Stan, my life here in Argentina is far superior to the one I left in California. Thankfully, the government really doesn't affect much of my day to day life in Patagonia, toque en madera.
Ken, totally agree with you on all fronts. We first came to ARG to recon property on Black Wednesday, 2004.
Suerte!

 

[ReemsterCARP]

I asked myself that question almost 4 years ago, after Bush got re-elected.
And now, I live in Buenos Aires.
Ken

you must be very happy then with the Kirchner dynasty

 

[soulskier]

Interested to know how the ARG government is affecting the lives of expats living in Argentina. Ream or Stan, could you shed some light?

 

[Stanexpat]

Glad you asked how the government impacted me in Argentina. There are many ways they did but I'll give you just two examples that directly affected me.
1. About 3 months after purchasing a house there we were notified by AFIP (kind of an Argentine IRS) that we owed tax on about $4 million pesos we had in the bank according to them. Of course the only money we had ever brought to the country was to buy a house. To make a long story short this was just a scam by people in the AFIP to try and extort a bribe from us to get them to leave us alone. We had to hire an accountant spend many hours and weeks getting this resloved. There of course was no $4 million pesos, this was fabricated by the AFIP. After a lot of frustrating effort and time we thought this was resloved. Three months pasted and we got a new letter from saying we now owed interest and penalities for unpaid taxes previously caluculated 3 months before. We hired the accountant again and went through the proccess a second time. Three months later we get another letter, same thing again. In about 2 years we had to spend close to $2,000 dollars basically fighting off these extortion attempts on non-existant tax issues.
2. We moved to Argentina from another Latin country with our car. You can bring a vehicle into Argentina duty free with some restrictions. This is very complicated but we followed the process with Customs but got scammed by them. To make a long story short we got approval to import the car duty free but were told since we let the temporary approval expire we would have to pay a $12,000 dollar fine. We had given them the paperwork for duty free importation a couple of months before our temporary permit expired. They just made sure the new paperwork wasn't approved until the temporary approval had expired. They took us aside and said if we would call a number someone could help us with the problem. The person at the other end said he could fix the problem for a $2,500 dollar bribe. We reluctantly paid and and had a back-dated temporary approval in our hands a few hours later. Assuming this scam is pulled on serveral people a month the folks in Customs are making a pretty good living. In addition to this we must of gone to government offices at least 20 times with waits in line of up to 2 hours, and additional fees and bribes totaling at least another $1,500.
I would put all this under hidden costs of living in Argentina.
I could write 10 or 15 more examples but these are the two that affected us the most directly. You can imagine that after a couple of years of these types of problems (and we experienced many more, this is just a sample) we were fed up. We sold our property and moved back to the states. We were very happy to get out of Argentina.
I am probably going

 

[RWS]

This is most interesting, Stan. I hope you'll finish your posting (I'd be grateful if, too, you would tell us which other Latin American country you lived in and why you left it).
Thanks!

 

[citygirl]

Soulskier - in my experience, lots of people love to say they're going to move to another country for a multitude of reasons.
The percentage that actually do it - miniscule.
As much as people say they will leave, I bet less than 1% will actually go through with it.

 

[Stanexpat]

RWS, to answer your question, it was Peru. When we left there we were concerned about long-term political stability(I still am). We were looking for someplace where we thought we might be able to settle down permanently.
Our intial impression of Argentina from a trip was positive(but visiting as a tourist and living somewhere are two different things). The difference we found between the two countries is that the level of corruption in Argentina is a lot worse based on our expierences. There was corruption in Peru as well but usually just giving a policement 2 or 3 dollars after being pulled over or giving an extra $25 dollars in a government office to get better service.
Also the hassle factor of living in Argentina is a lot worse. Just look at all the posts to this site regarding getting access to your own money through the banking system here. I've never seen anything like what goes on here in any other country. It really should be a tipoff to people on how difficult they make it here just to live there. You will find other services just as bad or worse than the banking system.
I'm considering starting my own blog in a couple of months to share my experiences in Argentina and other countries. There are some good things there and I think I can share and give some advice to other people on how to make life there at least tolerable.
When we decided to leave Argentina we considered Uruguay but decided against it as we are tired of moving and the thought of going through all the bureaucratic red-tape involved in establishing ourselves in another country there wasn't very appealing.