You Know You're Living In A 3Rd World Country When...

[rrptownley]

This character inversion in this thread reminds me of this meme:

 

[arlean]

What hurts my heart is that Argentina was, not so long ago, second only to the United States. That was true even of per capita income. I talk to every professional or knowledgeable person I can about what happened. All give me the same answers with a few nuances. I'm not sure which way the country is going, frankly, considering that, but the place sure is lovable, isn't it. To know Argentina is to love it.

 

[French jurist]

What hurts my heart is that Argentina was, not so long ago, second only to the United States. That was true even of per capita income. I talk to every professional or knowledgeable person I can about what happened. All give me the same answers with a few nuances. I'm not sure which way the country is going, frankly, considering that, but the place sure is lovable, isn't it. To know Argentina is to love it.

That's true... and that's not true at the same time.
Argentina was indeed a very wealthy country but only a tiny fraction of the population was rich (and rich far beyond limits: the Argentinian "aristocracy" used to come in South of France 6 months a year with like 15/20 employees). Colonization in Argentina was very different from the US one for example: in Argentina it was more on the "first come takes it all" or "first come, first served" basis while in the US (at some point) there was more repartition of the land (all the new migrants would get some piece of land).

I can see two main reasons for the issues Argentina is facing:
- First, the military coups (1930, 1943, 1955, 1962, 1966, 1976) which have weakened whole generations of Argentineans. When 80% of the teachers/university professors have to flee the country within one year, the consequences can be felt for 20 years.
- Second reason is more of a cultural/historical one: the "viveza criolla" which makes at the same time the Argentineans proud and upset. Roots of this "viveza criolla" can be traced back as far as the 18th century, when Buenos Ayres was just a small city who developped smuggling to survive (until Argentina became a Virreinato). The arrival of Italians did not help too... lol (my name is very Italian, for info).

Much could be said... but the key for Argentina's future is Education

 

[camberiu]

But Argentina did have a much bigger middle class than the rest of Latin America and this is no longer true. Take the 1940s and 1950s, for example: The middle class in Brazil or Chile was pretty much non-existent, while Argentina had a vibrant and broad middle class.

 

[ElQueso]

Every Argentine I know is either:

• Poor and feel no hope to get ahead, and blame evil capitalists, think Peron is great but are starting to worry about Cristina in a big way,
• Middle class and either scared sh*tless that they won't be for much longer and blame the Peronists as a whole (with exceptions who are only worried about Cristina's politics but are Peronists in principle) or are very happy where they are as they work for the government in one way or another or for a union, etc,
• Rich (I only know a few of this class) and see themselves as above it all, though a bit worried that might change with Cristina, but will be happy when "normal" Peronists get back in power.

Most of the Argentine poor I know live outside the city in small, unpainted houses with unfinished brick walls, drafty, leaky structures, crowded together at least a couple of generations, maybe a TV that works and travel hours to come into the city to work. When I lived out in Pilar, our immediate area (middle class to rich), was surrounded by thousands living like this - many neighborhoods, not just a single "slum." A few live in the city in "hotels" while fewer still live in villas (very few Argentines, from my experience, live in the villas - mostly Paraguayans, Bolivians, etc.).

The middle class I know range anywhere from living in small but (mostly) decent apartments or houses (in or outside the city) to apartments that come near to what I'm living in, if not a bit smaller overall and fewer amenities. They often live together at least two generations because of costs, or lack of ability (or desire) to get started for the younger generation. They live decent lives for the most part, at least in relation to the poor here, but not as good as what I found in the US in the lower middle class. However, the lower end of the middle class live more like I lived when I was a poor college student in the early 80's - and I worked three jobs to put myself through school and lived halfway decently in a one-bedroom apartment on the outskirts of Austin that was considered a poor area (if not a slum) and shared the apartment with a buddy - we took turns sleeping on the foldout sofa in the den because we didn't want one of us to have to sleep on the floor.

Middle-middle class in the States, where I came from, lived much like some of the rich live here. The upper middle class there like the really rich here. I'm sure the really, really rich in the States and Europe live pretty much like the landed families and government thieves (sorry, "workers" and "patriots", like Cristina) here live.

I know three "rich" people here. One is an architect and has a nice apartment he lives in and another his mother lives in, two cars and many toys one would expect of middle class in places like, oh, the US or Europe. Another is an ex-actress who lives in our building (supposedly famous, but I don't know much about Argentine films to be honest). Another is an ex-actress who lives in Microcentro and has a really nice apartment and furnishings and owns a car, although the car is a bit older (she doesn't drive much).

I spent quite a bit of time in Scotland (Aberdeen area) in the late 90s and made good friends with a number of middle class Scots, and as well knew a few wealthier individuals (officers in the companies I was working with, for example) but I wouldn't have considered them rich. Their life was very comparable to my middle class existence in the States.

Here, it seems to me that each economic class is one, one and a half, maybe even two levels below that of what I think of when I compare economic classes between here and the US. Granted, my knowledge comes from Gran Buenos Aires (city and surrounding areas, though mostly to the north and west). I hear the argument that it's difficult to compare, for example, a place like Houston to a place like Buenos Aires.

Maybe that's so, but I don't buy it personally. I've been to many other country capitals around the world and BA is a bit anomalous. Somewhere around 2/3 of the country's entire population lives here in the environs of BA. Not very common for a country that is reasonably well-off. But BA does have some "rich" amenities.

There are many good things about Argentina, but the state of its economy and the conditions in which the majority of her people live, are not really one of them, in my opinion. But then, I'm not a person who believes that life is good if you ONLY have family and friends and no toys to go along with things. I like a comfortable life surrounded by friends a family, not a hard one surrounded by the same.

My wife, who came from Paraguay some 7 years ago, used to say "but we are a happy family, we have each other." And that's very, very true, as far as it goes. She now realizes that only goes so far. This whole thing about parents being taken care of and such - she comes from a culture where the kids are expected to support their parents. In fact, the parents have kids specifically for this reason - their kids are their retirement plan. Where I come from, the parents do everything they can to make sure their kids get a better start than they did, and will sacrifice a lot to make that happen.

I've never really discussed this with my wife, but a few weeks ago, she came to me and was commenting about a problem (family farm debt in Paraguay, her brothers being here to work and send money home to pay the debt so that the family doesn't lose the farm, all due to some ignorant decisions made by her parents) and she realized what a burden her parents were putting on the future of her brothers and sisters by this "retirement plan." It is not only related to the debt - before tha became an issue, the kids were expected to send a portion of their income home - but the parents didn't do smart things with the money - they didn't invest in things they needed, they spent it on relative "luxuries." And they are much, much more modest in that regard than many other Paraguayan families I know who have sent their kids to other places to work.

This realization on my wife's part was a paradigm shift for her. A painful one.

Here, I think the middle class for the most part are somewhat the same as how I grew up - the parents do indeed sacrifice for the kids so they can have a better future. Below that, they seem to have pretty much the same idea that the poor Paraguayans have - kids are there to ensure the parents will be taken care of in their old age.

My parents grew up nearly as poor as my Paraguayan family currently is, back in the 30s and 40s. Even poor, my grandparents did everything they could to make sure my parents had opportunities they didn't have. The thought of using my parents as a retirement plan never even occurred to them. We grew up lower middle class, but again, my parents sacrificed for my brother and I, and when I started out in life (once I got past college) I was middle class and made it to upper-middle class status. BTW - my parents continued to grow in their lives after we got out of the house and established - they had opportunities as well. My folks do quite well for themselves and my father has been retired for almost 20 years.

My parents took care of my grandparents as needed as my grandparents aged, but there was very little they needed to do. None of them actually decomposed physically to the point where they couldn't live on their own. My grandmother on my father's side did come to live in Houston in a retirement community when my grandfather died - she had a one bedroom house with a garden outside in which she puttered until she finally died due to complications of pneumonia at the age of 93, almost10 years after my grandfather. She lived with my grandfather until he died, and chose to move close to us (they lived in Tulsa up to that point). My other grandparents died within a couple of years of each other, but lived happily surrounded by family in Chesapeak Bay until the end.

This whole thing of people in the US not taking care of their parents as they age, families being separated and not caring about one another, and a whole other range of what I consider to be myths (not that it never happens, but it is not exactly a common thing), is just ridiculous. Family life isn't what it is here for sure, but people have the option in the States to live their own lives, and they often choose to live separate for one reason or another. Personally, I'd really, really chafe living in the same apartment, house, or even the same neighborhood as my parents. But I remain close to them this day. Also my uncle and his kids, my cousins and their kids.

I called my father on his 74th birthday last week. I had to call back because he was out in the back of his house re-building a retaining wall, using a tractor and integrating railroad ties. By himself. He has prostate cancer and is currently undergoing radiated pellet treatment. Doctors say he has a 50-50 chance of surviving 2 years. He does everything HE can to make sure that his treatment is as successful as possible - he doesn't choose to lay down and die and let his kids watch as he slowly sinks into the next world. He'd be offended if I told him he needed to come move in with us so we could help my mother take care of him. That doesn't mean that if they needed something I wouldn't be on the first plane back to the States to help figure things out.

What can I say - we're independent, rugged, and certainly not interdependent for our survival. I see that as a good thing. In three generations our family went from well below the poverty line (in the 30s!) to doing pretty damn well for themselves.

I guess each needs to make his own decision how to survive and progress in life, but I like our style!

P.S. Sorry for the long text...

 

[serranita]

You know you´re living in a third world country when:

- You cant take public transport or live outside a closed residential neighborhood because its unsafe.
- You have to wash vegetables with a special disinfectant and boil drinking water to avoid typhoid fever, cholera, and more.
- The closed residential neghborhood you live in is surrounded by shanty towns with flimsy houses that nevertheless all have cable tv.(allthough everyone watches local soap operas).
- You pay your domestic employees five times as much as the locals would and you still feel guilty.
- Your domestic employee of over two years who now gets a very decent salary for being trustworthy and whose children you are helping school robs all your possesions when you are away on a trip and the police offer to torture him to get him to confess.
- Children do their homework by the light of a candle because there is a 5 hour blackout everyday.

 

[Chenque]

What surprises me is that you can see a guy driving in a Porsche Cayenne (or whatever extremely expensive car) passing a slum or passing a family with horse and buggy (or whatever you call these, I´m no native English speaker)......and I keep on thinking: does this guy in the Porsche not feel any shame? Anyway, Confucius already said these wise words 1500 years ago:

"In a country well governed, poverty is something to be ashamed of. In a country badly governed, wealth is something to be ashamed of."

 

[glasgowjohn]

elqueso - great post !! I can identify with a whole lot of stuff you wrote about even though I was born in a different continent.

 

[citygirl]

What surprises me is that you can see a guy driving in a Porsche Cayenne (or whatever extremely expensive car) passing a slum or passing a family with horse and buggy (or whatever you call these, I´m no native English speaker)......and I keep on thinking: does this guy in the Porsche not feel any shame? Anyway, Confucius already said these wise words 1500 years ago:

"In a country well governed, poverty is something to be ashamed of. In a country badly governed, wealth is something to be ashamed of."

Why would someone feel shame for what they've earned? That's one hell of an assumption to make that a person earning a good salary with nice possesions hasn't a) worked his/her butt off to get there and B) doesn't do anything to help those less fortunate. That's a very, very bizarre thought pattern in my opinion.

I have nice things. Should I hand over my expensive jewelry or car or horse or what have you to someone else just because I have something and they don't?

(Although hell, given the number of times my well-paid employees have stolen from me here, I guess lots of people feel the same)

 

[arlean]

What city girl says!!!!! Exactly.

There is an effort afoot to brainwash people into class resentment and set one group against the other. As if success falls out of the sky on certain people. It doesn't work that way normally. I grew up pretty poor. We did have indoor plumbing but no hot water and no car. Some of my family had no inside bathroom.

We didn't get any kind of help from anyone and we are not in poverty today. I am so glad I never fell for the propaganda because it would have stopped my progress. I admire people who are successful and I have done what I could to learn from them. In fact, I still do. I've never quit. I've learned a lot since leaving the States--and some of that understanding is ABOUT the States. Most of the poverty and problems is caused by government being too involved in people's lives, not from lack of government intervention. The more government has grown in the U.S., the more problems it is causing. When I was a young adult there was almost no socialism--and little government intervention or interference. Any poor kid that was willing to work could be successful. It takes time, and a lot of work, but the opportunity was there. It still is but it is a LOT harder and a lot more limited.

Before I left, with all the regulations of just about everything, it took a lot of money to get into a business. The problem is most regulation is brought about by corporations already in business that want to keep out competition or destroy competition that is already there. So the more government intervention you want, the less opportuity you will have.The main function of government should be protecting people from crime and seeing that contracts are honored.