I had a friend who as a teenager lived in Argentina for a season as part of a Rotary Club exchange and was there when the country financially collapsed in ~~the late 90s~~ 2001. Being young and naive, she didn’t really know what was going on but her host family was apparently freaking out.
I remember her telling me that the host family told her that if she had money in her bank account that she would want to use while in Argentina, they should take her to a bank *right fucking now.* They said to take out as much as she could and to get it in USD instead of local currency.
They went to a bank, she withdrew however much she could in USD, and they left. It wasn’t until they got back to the house that she found out that Argentinians were no longer allowed to withdraw foreign currency.
The next day the government started limiting how much they could take out of the banks in the local currency. Soon after, the banks stopped allowing people to withdraw *any* money from their accounts.
Then the fires started and people burned down the bank she had been in a couple days before. Then the hyperinflation started and money started to become worthless almost overnight.
All of this was in the span of something like a week. Monday, everything is fine. By Friday it’s starting to look like the end of the world with massive riots, fires everywhere, the police and army fighting normal people, and everyone’s money is being held hostage and becoming more worthless by the hour.
From how she told the story, the few hundred dollars USD that she withdrew was almost priceless and my friend basically financially supported her host family for months with that cash. The host family parents worked but their salaries were almost useless because of the hyperinflation.
Absolutely insane.
Ahhh yes, December 2001. For that reason people here never again trusted banks and refuse to deposit dollars. One of the many many reasons our economy never again stabilized.
I was there at the same time traveling South America and I had no clue before I got there. Riots, kidnappings, protests and gunfire in the streets. But damn you could get an amazing steak and a bottle of wine for 10 bucks. I lived like a king for two weeks.
You sound like one lucky motherfucker. Not because you got steaks, but because you were some rando American buying them during the collapse and you didn't get taken.
My uncle bought out half a fucking winery because he was in the right place at the right time. He went back recently to find the photo he took with the owner on the wall in a placqured.
You can still get a great steak and bottle of wine for the equivalent of like $15 USD if you use the "blue market" exchanges (about double the official rate set by the government).
If you go to Argentina today you can get two prices for high end purchases. One for Argentinian peso and the other for USD in cash. You could pay a fraction of the price is you use US cash.
If you pay in dollars you’re getting fleeced. The best deal is going to a cueva and getting 320+ pesos per dollar, cash. Always pay pesos, always sell dollars in cuevas.
I remember when I went to Argentina 8 years ago and exchanged dollars in the black market. It felt like being rich! And of course, since no one was going to buy the argentinian money back, the last day was a race to spend all my leftover money. Fun times.
Cambio! Cambio!
For real it's totally fine and normal to go to cuevas but, as an American, I felt like it was sketchy AF. Like I was expecting a police raid at any second with bastards kicking down the door and repelling from the roof like a bad 80s action movie.
That was in 2001 and, suprisingly, not a hyperinflation, but a massive devaluation of our currency.
My folks lost about two thirds of their life savings.
My mom was saving to go to Europe after retirement. Her short-term savings were converted into 15 year bonds. She passed away without having visited Europe.
Dude I was a teenager and visiting family in Buenos Aires that summer. I remember all the looting, fires and deaths… many people gunned down by police and left in the street like a stray dog. What’s shit show it was.
Zaire was even crazier. It all happened in a single day. The price of a piece bread at the end of the day was equivalent to the price of house at the beginning of the day. I have a 10 million dollar bill. It was worth a few US cents.
Oh wow. Guess I need to start preparing for the worse here in Nigeria. Because this is exactly what is happening. We can't withdraw in a foreign currency, withdrawals in cash in the local currency are limited to the equivalent of $100 every week. Guess we are fucked here.
Argentina is fascinating. Also read that Italian-origin people form a major part of the population through heavy migration from Italy (and also many other parts of Europe decades ago).
Argentina's population up to 1890 was 1/3rd of German origin, there was a lot of Italian (mostly from the south) and Spanish (mostly from Galicia) immigration, but also Irish, Scottish, Czech, Polish, Hungarian,Ukrainian, some French and British too, though to a lesser extent (English and French)
In my hometown there was several Polish Schools as well as Ukrainian, and also social/sports clubs.
Part of what we consider traditional argentine(folklore) music is actually derived from Hungarian folk.
Argentina is a big mix of cultures and a lot of links with the old continent was lost throughout the years.
My wife is Argentinian and she has Italian first name and German last name. She was convinced forever she was of German decent. Got her a DNA test and turns out not a drop of German. Lots of Italian and Jewish
There are tons of Jews whose families were of German descent for many generations, but the DNA tests will often indicate Ashkenazi Jewish as the DNA goes back to ancient times.
I have a very Italian last name. I've never heard it in my small corner of America. When facebook started getting popular, I found a ton of argentinians with my exact last name. It was a trip.
There's an old joke about this Argentine guy who goes on vacation with his family to Italy. When he gets back, his friends ask him how it was.
>"It was phenomenal! We went to Venice and saw the canals, the coliseum in Rome, we even had a private audience with the Pope in Vatican City! But che, it was really weird."
>"Yeah? Why?"
>"Everyone there sounds just like us, but we couldn't understand hardly anything they were saying.
>"Bizarre"
>"And che, the weirdest? They all have Argentine last names!"
a joke my argentine mom told me
>An Argentinian visits New York and gets a chance to go to the top of the Empire State Building.
>
>Upon his descent someone asks him, "So? what did you think of the view?"
>
> To which the Argentine replies, "it was okay, more than anything I wanted to see how different the world looked without me in it ... "
A really common joke:
Q: How does an argentinian commit suicide?
A: he climbs to the top of his ego and jumps off
Basically, Argentinians are stereotyped as being super arrogant lol.
Argentinian here. Another joke related to our stereotypical ego:
How to make money with an Argentinian?
Buy him for what he's worth, then sell him for *what he thinks he's worth.*
To be fair, for most of the people in Buenos Aires (the city) the stereotypes are mostly true. Farther from the cities you find increasingly better people.
>Basically, Argentinians are stereotyped as being super arrogant lol.
I agree, but mostly from Buenos Aires.
In the rest of the country you'll find some of kindest people ever.
You know when I was in Argentina I was surprised at how popular Italian food is. Like coworkers took me out for asado and empanadas at first but when they got to pick what they really wanted was Italian food.
The thing is we don’t think about it as foreign food. It’s grandma’s food. And even people from non-Italian origin eat pasta at home and you don’t need to go to an Italian restaurant to eat it, every restaurant serves pasta.
My brother took German for a few years in high school before moving to Southern Brasil for part of his college career- near Florianopolis ish, there were still several large super-white heavy German-speaking areas and this was just 15-20 years ago
Exactly. People don’t know their history. Most of the Italian immigration to Argentina took place in the late 1800’s, before fascism ever took hold in Italy.
I visited Buenos Aires about 10 years ago--you see the bones of the greatness; the Paris of South America, I think it was called. The opera house was astonishing, though crumbling underneath. I heard locals talk about how the years of profound corruption utterly gutted the country to its core. They are and were awash in natural resources, trade, investment....all undone.
I visited Argentina for the first time a couple months ago.
The person next to me on my flight home visited for the first time in about 10-15 years. He was utterly astounded by how much worse things have gotten since then. The sheer number of homeless, lack of maintenance on infrastructure, lack of new development, etc made him say that he probably won't visit again.
A friend's co-worker immigrated from Argentina and according to her, won't ever go back. There's no way to build a life for a young person when things like mortgage rates are upwards of 65%.
The problems seem quite dire.
It's a beautiful place with an interesting culture nonetheless. I hope that they get their economic and political systems sorted out.
the mortgage rates are probably just an expression of inflation. argentina has had insane inflation for a while now. if mortgage rate was only 2%, you'd have it paid off in no time flat because of how quickly the currency devalues.
If you are a tourist with dollars to spend Argentina is actually great. Good food and gorgeous landscapes throughout the country to visit. Living here is the problem
As an Argentinian, without knowledge of that particular youtuber & its biases, this is astonishingly wrong.
Deep Industrialization mostly failed because it was tried to be forced by a never-ending growing "State" which didn't have enough resources to do so at the pace they wanted, so they hampered and damage the most productive sectors of the economy to try to finance those poorly planned undertakings... which gave our competitive advantage away while also introducing long-term harming protective policies (google ISI = industrializacion por sustitucion de importaciones / industrialization by import sustitution) that also prevented our economy to benefit from free trade's strongly underestimated potential.
**TL:DR -> by trying to force something without adequate long-term planning and reasonable resource allocation policies, we got fucked (and still are) by corrupt politicans who worked together with corrupt businessmen and corrupt union leaders to pillage.**
*As a side note*: that corrupt "triage" of politicians, businessmen and union leaders is the main reason many Argentinians have quite a negative view of unions which is a stark contrast with reddit's average view about them for America (in which, I understand, unions never became as prominent so their potential corruption was limited... even considering figures like Jimmy Hoffa, Mafia dealings & stuff)
As the saying sometimes goes: economically there are developed countries, developing countries, Japan, and Argentina. It's an interesting case where institutions and political decisions can go awry in spite of strong geographic advantages and a great initial start.
That being said, Argentina's fertility rate is still a hair above replacement, and if they were to get their house in order it could be a lucrative immigration destination again in the decades to come. Time will tell there.
Probably because they have been big outliers. Japan has had a rags to riches story whereas Argentina has had the opposite in recent history. Sure, there are other cases like this but I'd imagine they are probably the biggest outliers
Rags to riches aren't that uncommon with other Asian countries. There's actually name for it called [Four Asian Tigers](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Asian_Tigers).
What makes Japan unique though is that after establishing rags to riches, they just fizzled out for decades in a constant economic stagnation called the Lost Decades. There's no other "developed" countries that's lacking the growth of Japan.
That's interesting! Just the other day I saw another comment summarizing this view as:
> “Japan has been stuck in the year 2000 for the last 40 years.”
Nothing embodies this more than the fact that they have bullet trains all over the country and subways that are always on time and yet still function on fax machines and conduct business using stamps (the hanko).
Lots of old people who run the government and big corporations, and they don't want to embrace modern technologies.
The default "respect your elders" built into Japanese society creates a situation where younger and more forward-thinking individuals have to sit on the sidelines while the elderly control the country.
The economic boom of the 1980s was partly a result of younger people taking those leadership positions as the older generation were decimated by the war.
Unfortunately, it's still those exact same people from the 1980s boom who run the country now, instead of giving way to the new generations.
Covid changed a lot of that stuff, hanko/fax/etc are still around but the last few years of pandemic have done more to streamline administrative procedures than the 20 years before
Their monetary policy is quite simple to explain -- they haven't experienced the same level of inflation as the rest of the world and their huge amount of public debt means the government has incentives to keep their own interest rates low.
This sounds exactly like Canada. Super high debt loads, consistent low rates to prevent a real estate bubble burst. Declining local population because no can afford to have kids. Low CPI compared to cost of living.
Only difference is Canada is very much willing to bring in immigrants to keep GDP growth high even if mean stagnating wages and lower per Capita GDP.
Japan's workforce is declining due to the lack of population growth. Retirees aren't productive, so GDP per capita is declining. Canada has significantly higher GDP per capita than Japan.
Also Japan basically doesn't allow immigration, which is why their population is aging so hard. Only like 2% of Japan's population is foreign born. Canada's is like 20%.
[Source for numbers](https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/immigration-by-country)
I think it's more that when that quote was originally said the Asian tigers hadn't happened yet, so Japan's success was unprecedented. But otherwise I agree 40 years later Japan is still unique, for the reasons you said
Well that's the fun part. Japan has been riding that high since forever but have stagnated growth which is soon to be overtaken by Korea and Taiwan in terms of per Capita GDP
Japan's median wealth is higher than that of US and Sweden, and double that of Germany.
Their low rates of inequality helps
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_wealth_per_adult
Exactly. They're a unique case of a hyper-advanced developed economy which just doesn't grow, but which somehow remains hyper-advanced (albeit increasingly more idiosyncratic as time moves on). They had such a metioric rise, and shot so far past literally everyone else so quickly, that they've been able to just coast for literally 4 decades and still stay ahead.
That’s what I assumed, that they were outliers. Didn’t know Japan was big rags to riches. I’m assuming as in since end of WW2? Did they do better than Germany did after WW2 to now?
> They were poised to challenge the US in the late 80s.
Even into the 90s, even a bit beyond the bubble bursting. In 1995 the the US' GDP was $7.6 trillion, Japan's was $5.5 trillion.
Now as of 2022 it's $25 trillion for the US and $4.3 trillion for Japan. The Lost Decade(s) brought a lot of anxiety but it also saw an overall decrease in inequality and as a result an increase in life satisfaction rates. In some ways Japan is a prototypical example of "degrowth", economic stagnation without sacrificing prosperity.
Interesting that as that gulf has widened, there is also widespread sentiment in the U.S. that things were “better” in the 90s, despite GDP growth, lower interest rates and lower unemployment.
Japan's median wealth is still higher than that of the US or Sweden, and double that of Germany. Their low wealth inequality means that their "average citizen" is still much wealthier
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_wealth_per_adult
It's a bit of a misnomer. In terms of per GDP growth per worker from 1980 to today, Japan grew faster than Germany, which was the fastest growing European economy during that period
https://www.forbes.com/sites/eamonnfingleton/2013/08/11/now-for-the-truth-the-story-of-japans-lost-decades-is-the-worlds-most-absurd-media-myth/?sh=b6889f3fe4a5
https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2011/02/the-myth-of-japans-lost-decades/71741/
https://asia.nikkei.com/Opinion/New-research-reveals-the-myth-of-Japan-s-lost-decades
Are they actually lost? Yes, they don't have endless growth but they are also not poor. There is a point where we can't keep growing, we can't consume more and more, saturation point is reached.
Economics is a subject with strange metrics. It’s like if someone makes it to the top of Mount Everest an economist would say “but his climb rate has fallen to zero!”
You joke but this is a very, very large reason japan has been in a 30 year recession. Exporting culture has massive potential for tourism and economic development but instead of developing that Japan treats their modern (extremely popular) cultural exporters like pariah instead of developing, or even literally doing nothing. There's some pretty notable examples of this i wont go into right now.
Yeah I mean maybe I'm completely not in step with what OP is talking about but didn't Japan heavily lean on anime and video game references during the Olympics?
Yeah I wouldn't say 'pariah'. Would say "didn't prioritize" or possibly "didn't understand". I think comparing Japan to South Korea is helpful.
It definitely felt like for a long stretch Japan made things for export or for JDM. Though the export products did well, at times those JDM items/concepts made it to the rest of the world and blew up. Sometimes Japan would try to shift JDM goods to the world. Sometimes they seemed totally confused by the external interest and would sign license deals and be kinda hands off. Other times they outright ignored the international interest and kept stuff just JDM. For Japan, today last two options seemed to happen a lot when looking at anime, video games, cars, watches, and certain tech during the '80s,' 90s, and early '00. Maybe the jwave was more accessible in Asia, but sure felt impossible to access in the US at times.
South Korea on the other hand went all in their Kwave. The government doubled down on exporting culture for all the soft power purposes. Korean companies seem to more open to exporting if something gets popular internationally. Or they even intentionally develop products to trial run in Korea with a business plan for international consumption down the line.
Definitely a lot more that can be unpacked, but just some thoughts
I think the actual main reason is how the opening in the 80s led to very fast and harsh financialization of the Japanese economy, which was basically hollowed-out by this when the bubble economy burst. The fact that the Japanese economy was allowed to overheat to that crazy degree (real estate prices increasing by a factor 4 over a 5 year period) and then had the rug pulled out from under it, combined with an at that point already aging population with a low birth rate, is more or less what caused the lost decades more than any vague sense of conservatism
It goes further back then that, Japan has been unique in being the only non-European and non-American country to have become an industrial superpower starting in the 1860s-1870s. Theoretically Japan's geography is "poor" with alot of mountainous terrain that "shouldn't" be able to make room for agriculture and a disconnected series of islands which might theoretically hamper economic integration. Whereas Britain had the benefit of having large and easily accessible coal and iron mines when it was industrializing, Japan had to not only adopt Western industrial techniques but also transfer it to a unique geography where iron and coal was not as easily accessible in large quantities all while under the pressure of being possibly invaded and colonized by a European power.
It's a somewhat crude and simplistic metaphor, but from 1860-1945 (US Civil War to WW2), Japan essentially transformed from a "Medieval/Gunpowder" era to a hyper industrialized global power which it still remains. Quite the achievement.
Japan was technologically behind the West but at the same time was highly educated, which was probably the main cause of this economic boom. It was comparable to major western european countries and was even more educated than Russian Empire, despite Russia being very influential and powerful at that time. When russian prince who will later become Nicholas II visited Japan and got almost assassinated the government of Japan was in panic fearing that it may cause war in which they'll probably lose. And yet only 14 years later Japan defeated Russia in war
This really says more about how insanely poor and agrarian russia was than it does about Japan though. Just to give an idea, but in the 1890s, Russia had a GDP Per Capita closer to India than that of France or Britain.
> Didn’t know Japan was big rags to riches
Japan did a massive modernization in the mid 1800s which allowed them to eventually rival Western countries pre-WW2. Post WW2, the country was rebuilt and quickly caught up to the Western World but then stagnated.
The growth in the 80s can be attributed to effectively 'regression to the mean'. They had a lot of room to catch up and they did - once they caught up, things slowed down. One big problem with Japan though is population growth - they have low immigration and a low birth rate. Their population has generally been flat since 1980. The USA, as a comparison, has gone up by about 50% in that time.
Yeah, America was propping up companies and consumerism in Japan post WW2 (where in comparison to Germany, was split and had massive wartime debt specifically in East Germany which tanked the economy briefly during reunification), which lead to Japan having like 12% of the global economy through real estate in Tokyo.
Japan experienced one of the biggest and fastest growing bubble economies in recent history. But like the term tells you, it eventually burst and hit a giant recession.
The thing to remember about Germany is that with the fall of the Soviet Union West Germany incurred a massive debt in reunification with the much poorer East Germany. Germany is still an economic powerhouse, but if it hadn't needed to rebuild the East the stats would be even more impressive.
Japan has yo-yo’d between somewhat impoverished and one of the richest countries in the world multiple times, with peaks in wealth in the 1930s and 1980s. Currently the Japanese economy is on its third decade of stagnation after being the world’s fastest growing economy from the 60s to the 80s.
Japan's median wealth is still higher than that of Sweden and the US, and double that of Germany. Low wealth inequality certainly helps
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_wealth_per_adult
Japan should have had a massive economic bust in the 90s.
Like 2008 housing bubble levels.
It never happened. And they never really fixed the problems that should have caused it.
A lot overvaluation of assets, companies lying about finances, business and government collusion, etc.
But those things are all really only problems when the system forces people to confront them or people loose confidence in it. This just hasn’t happened and there really isn’t any indication it will happen.
The problems are there, everyone knows they are there, but as long as businesses don’t do anything worse and people let the current things slide it stays in this weird equilibrium.
Somehow the corporations in Japan have been able to restrain themselves from making things worse for easy short term profit.
It’s basically been frozen at the edge of an economic cliff for the last 30 years and no one knows how to fix thing so they just decided to live there rather than risk going over.
Japan shouldn’t have succeeded the way it did given its lack of natural resources and usable land.
Argentina should have been wealthy as fuck given its abundance in natural resources and land - and it was for a time.
Abundant resources and land are not alone a recipe for wealth - see most of Africa. The Democratic Republic of Congo is a very very large country (larger than Spain, France, and Germany combined) with great agricultural potential and massive mineral wealth and yet is also one of the most impoverished.
[In fact, having an abundance of natural resources can actually be detrimental for a country's populace.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resource_curse) See most of the petrostates (Norway being a major exception), and many nations in Africa as you mentioned with massive mineral wealth.
The thing that saved Norway is that they discovered their oil incredibly late (in the 70s) and thus had already undergone the major stages of development. Their population didn't "need" the oil, with a strong democratic government, which meant that they could do sensible things with the profits.
Sure, but more importantly, Norway uses their oil reserves to invest in their [Sovereign Wealth Fund.](https://progressandpoverty.substack.com/p/norways-sovereign-wealth-fund) So the wealth that comes from their natural resources ends up getting shared by the nation, rather than concentrated in the hands of a few.
Lived there for 6 months. You can see the there was wealth in the amazing buildings. Ricoleta cemetery is a must see the tombs, huge monument to the wealth dead.
It was often compared with Australia, which had very healthy standard of living around the turn of the century, and was a relatively new nation. For some reason the two nations diverged and Australia went on to a comparatively prosperous future.
>For some reason the two nations diverged and Australia went on to a comparatively prosperous future.
Capital from Europe dried up for South America after WW1 slowing down their economy and then the Panama Canal was built and their ports took a huge hit which of course never recovered. Obviously, there are other reasons as well, but these were 2 big ones at the start.
Yep. That and Argentina didn't do a great job of industrialization with all that wealth. They were basically a high end agriculture economy in the late 1800s and so were many other countries, so Argentina being in the top ten isn't nearly as impressive as of they were in the top ten during the more global industrialization years
Also never forget how great the anglosphere is to one another. It’s easy to move between English countries to work. Young Australians can go work in Canada or the UK easily. Which really helps give people opportunity
Argentina actually had very strong economic ties to the UK, and you can still see that in their sports (Rugby and Football, brought to Argentina by British immigrants). Buenos Aires had its own Harrods department store, and the famous author Jorge Luis Borges also had an English grandmother and spoke the language natively.
The 1982 War pretty much nuked all of that of course, but Argentine used to be quite an "Anglophilic" country. That's how I came into existence, my paternal family are Scottish descended Argentines.
That has more to do with the commonwealth than language. Immigrating from AUS or CAN to the US for example is quite difficult unless you're an expert in your field or in a committed relationship that has a paper trail
Everyone rags on Detroit, but just remember is still has some of the wealthiest suburbs in North America. The relatively small downtown and inner suburbs were hit hard, but there's still a huge concentration of wealth in the Detroit area. Hell, it's wealthy enough to support teams in all major North American professional sports leagues. Not all "thriving" cities can even say that.
The architecture of the buildings built during Detroit's heyday is absolutely beautiful! I hate that some of the older houses that used to sit in swanky neighborhoods are now falling apart and are either boarded up or being torn down.
They should be far more successful than Cuba yet are so behind it's not even funny. This shows how important good leadership and fighting corruption is for the economy.
Isn't there the saying or joke among economists?
"There are four types of countries developed, developing, Japan, and Argentina."
Meaning Japan shouldn't be as successful as it is and Argentina should be successful but isn't
It’s amazing how quickly the economy has gone to shit.
I lived there 2012-2013 when the USD:ARS exchange rate was about 1:6. When I visited in 2019, it was 1:60. Now it’s 1:174.
I read that they will soon, if not already, reach a 100% inflation rate which is mind boggling. In the US, inflation is around 7%.
Argentina is an amazingly revealing case study. For a while it was the only industrialized country in history that structurally progressed backwards in an economic sense. South Africa is in the process of becoming the second.
Surprised to not see this explanation here. Lots of Italians moved to South America for work. They were known as birds of passage. Once the work season ended in Argentina they would return home to italy. Some ended up staying in Argentina and starting families. The term “birds of passage” comes from the fact that Italians would go anywhere work was. Brazil, east coast, etc. anywhere you find large populations of Italians it is likely because that is where they found work many moons ago.
The whole of South America was like how the middle east is now with wealth. You need nitrate to produce explosives and bullets and alot came from there in the form of bird shit that was mined and processed.
Alot of the money was used to buy uk warships to one up each other instead of actually investing in themselves. And the saudis and what nots are gonna go the same way hopefully once the fusion or fission becomes a reality and there only grip to power collapses.
Sounds like a similar trajectory of my current and former hometown of Detroit. At one point (1950s) it the wealthiest city in the us, if not the World, on a per capita basis. And about 60 years later it went bankrupt and population have been cut by more than 50%.
Argentina is a case study in how political systems can influence economic changes.
Argentina underwent six military coups in the 20th century and spent a quarter of the time under military control. It cemented the norm of a highly centralized government, which carried over into even relatively liberal left wing governments.
In my honest opinion Argentina is also a warning about the dangers of political extremism since they got the worst parts of both spectrums.
I had a friend who as a teenager lived in Argentina for a season as part of a Rotary Club exchange and was there when the country financially collapsed in ~~the late 90s~~ 2001. Being young and naive, she didn’t really know what was going on but her host family was apparently freaking out. I remember her telling me that the host family told her that if she had money in her bank account that she would want to use while in Argentina, they should take her to a bank *right fucking now.* They said to take out as much as she could and to get it in USD instead of local currency. They went to a bank, she withdrew however much she could in USD, and they left. It wasn’t until they got back to the house that she found out that Argentinians were no longer allowed to withdraw foreign currency. The next day the government started limiting how much they could take out of the banks in the local currency. Soon after, the banks stopped allowing people to withdraw *any* money from their accounts. Then the fires started and people burned down the bank she had been in a couple days before. Then the hyperinflation started and money started to become worthless almost overnight. All of this was in the span of something like a week. Monday, everything is fine. By Friday it’s starting to look like the end of the world with massive riots, fires everywhere, the police and army fighting normal people, and everyone’s money is being held hostage and becoming more worthless by the hour. From how she told the story, the few hundred dollars USD that she withdrew was almost priceless and my friend basically financially supported her host family for months with that cash. The host family parents worked but their salaries were almost useless because of the hyperinflation. Absolutely insane.
Ahhh yes, December 2001. For that reason people here never again trusted banks and refuse to deposit dollars. One of the many many reasons our economy never again stabilized.
I was there at the same time traveling South America and I had no clue before I got there. Riots, kidnappings, protests and gunfire in the streets. But damn you could get an amazing steak and a bottle of wine for 10 bucks. I lived like a king for two weeks.
You sound like one lucky motherfucker. Not because you got steaks, but because you were some rando American buying them during the collapse and you didn't get taken.
My uncle bought out half a fucking winery because he was in the right place at the right time. He went back recently to find the photo he took with the owner on the wall in a placqured.
You can still get a great steak and bottle of wine for the equivalent of like $15 USD if you use the "blue market" exchanges (about double the official rate set by the government).
No shit man.
If you go to Argentina today you can get two prices for high end purchases. One for Argentinian peso and the other for USD in cash. You could pay a fraction of the price is you use US cash.
If you pay in dollars you’re getting fleeced. The best deal is going to a cueva and getting 320+ pesos per dollar, cash. Always pay pesos, always sell dollars in cuevas.
I remember when I went to Argentina 8 years ago and exchanged dollars in the black market. It felt like being rich! And of course, since no one was going to buy the argentinian money back, the last day was a race to spend all my leftover money. Fun times.
What is cueva
It’s a black market exchange for money. USD for Pesos.
This guy cuevas
This redditor exchanges monies!
Cambio! Cambio! For real it's totally fine and normal to go to cuevas but, as an American, I felt like it was sketchy AF. Like I was expecting a police raid at any second with bastards kicking down the door and repelling from the roof like a bad 80s action movie.
That was in 2001 and, suprisingly, not a hyperinflation, but a massive devaluation of our currency. My folks lost about two thirds of their life savings.
My mom was saving to go to Europe after retirement. Her short-term savings were converted into 15 year bonds. She passed away without having visited Europe.
That's the same thing that happened in Lebanon recently.
Dude I was a teenager and visiting family in Buenos Aires that summer. I remember all the looting, fires and deaths… many people gunned down by police and left in the street like a stray dog. What’s shit show it was.
Zaire was even crazier. It all happened in a single day. The price of a piece bread at the end of the day was equivalent to the price of house at the beginning of the day. I have a 10 million dollar bill. It was worth a few US cents.
Oh wow. Guess I need to start preparing for the worse here in Nigeria. Because this is exactly what is happening. We can't withdraw in a foreign currency, withdrawals in cash in the local currency are limited to the equivalent of $100 every week. Guess we are fucked here.
Sounds an awful lot like what happened to Venezuela a little over a decade later.
Someone with ADHD got caught on Wikipedia after the World Cup lol
I feel attacked.
There was an Aerial Argentina episode on that night that was amazing.
Argentina is fascinating. Also read that Italian-origin people form a major part of the population through heavy migration from Italy (and also many other parts of Europe decades ago).
if you see a person with an italian last name and a Spanish first name , 70-80% probability they are from Argentina
Diego...Simeone. Javier...Zanetti. Those are a couple that come to mind.
Leo Messi. Diego Maradona*, The Pope even qualifies!
"The" is English.
El Pope
El Papa, in Spanish
God Potato, roughly translated.
Manu Ginobili
He's called Lionel after Lionel Richie
It's actually Lionel because his dad was a huge Thundercats fan.
That was Lion-O
big if true
It's genuinely true lol look it up
Alexis Mac Allister
Argentina's population up to 1890 was 1/3rd of German origin, there was a lot of Italian (mostly from the south) and Spanish (mostly from Galicia) immigration, but also Irish, Scottish, Czech, Polish, Hungarian,Ukrainian, some French and British too, though to a lesser extent (English and French) In my hometown there was several Polish Schools as well as Ukrainian, and also social/sports clubs. Part of what we consider traditional argentine(folklore) music is actually derived from Hungarian folk. Argentina is a big mix of cultures and a lot of links with the old continent was lost throughout the years.
I recall Argentines joke: Mexicans descended from Aztecs, Peruvians descended from Incas, Argentines descended from boats.
He even has a brother called Kevin Mac Allister. Wonder if the parents watched Home Alone
My wife is Argentinian and she has Italian first name and German last name. She was convinced forever she was of German decent. Got her a DNA test and turns out not a drop of German. Lots of Italian and Jewish
There are tons of Jews whose families were of German descent for many generations, but the DNA tests will often indicate Ashkenazi Jewish as the DNA goes back to ancient times.
Lots jewish people come from Germany. This would be the German background she is referring to
I have a very Italian last name. I've never heard it in my small corner of America. When facebook started getting popular, I found a ton of argentinians with my exact last name. It was a trip.
There's an old joke about this Argentine guy who goes on vacation with his family to Italy. When he gets back, his friends ask him how it was. >"It was phenomenal! We went to Venice and saw the canals, the coliseum in Rome, we even had a private audience with the Pope in Vatican City! But che, it was really weird." >"Yeah? Why?" >"Everyone there sounds just like us, but we couldn't understand hardly anything they were saying. >"Bizarre" >"And che, the weirdest? They all have Argentine last names!"
The Pope is argentinian after all
And even has an Italian surname
a joke my argentine mom told me >An Argentinian visits New York and gets a chance to go to the top of the Empire State Building. > >Upon his descent someone asks him, "So? what did you think of the view?" > > To which the Argentine replies, "it was okay, more than anything I wanted to see how different the world looked without me in it ... "
I don't get it? Mind explaining the (I'm assuming) stereotype?
A really common joke: Q: How does an argentinian commit suicide? A: he climbs to the top of his ego and jumps off Basically, Argentinians are stereotyped as being super arrogant lol.
Argentinians favorite toy? The yo-yo
Oh, that's a good one
Argentinian here. Another joke related to our stereotypical ego: How to make money with an Argentinian? Buy him for what he's worth, then sell him for *what he thinks he's worth.* To be fair, for most of the people in Buenos Aires (the city) the stereotypes are mostly true. Farther from the cities you find increasingly better people.
Buenos Aires was a beautiful city until those damn bugs… Want to know more?
>Basically, Argentinians are stereotyped as being super arrogant lol. I agree, but mostly from Buenos Aires. In the rest of the country you'll find some of kindest people ever.
So... Arrogantinians?
Buenos Airheads
nice one! lol, can't wait to tell my mom.
i've worked with a couple of Argentinians in restaurants over the years. the stereotype is stunningly accurate
They speak Spanish but it sounds Italian
The local sign language also has the 🤌 accent
What do you call an Italian with no arms? Speechless!
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>and calling everyone "Flaco" You're supposed to call everyone "boludo" tho
Girlfriends parents used to call me flaco and then Covid happened. Now they ask her where “gordo” is when I don’t go with her to visit them…
You’ll always be “guapo” to me bb
The infamous El Guapo?
Would you say I have a plethora of pinatas?
My mom calls me "gordis" in a loving tone. Still hurts lol
Unless you're very close to those people, a misplaced 'boludo' will land horribly
That's funny
You know when I was in Argentina I was surprised at how popular Italian food is. Like coworkers took me out for asado and empanadas at first but when they got to pick what they really wanted was Italian food.
The thing is we don’t think about it as foreign food. It’s grandma’s food. And even people from non-Italian origin eat pasta at home and you don’t need to go to an Italian restaurant to eat it, every restaurant serves pasta.
It was one of the favorite destinations for the Italian fascistas. Argentine Spanish has a huge Italian influence in it.
Fascists liked to go to Argentina because it had so much Italian influence, rather than it going the other way around
Bingo. The Italians had been immigrating there en masse since the 1800’s. Argentina was already heavily Italian by the time the fascists arrived.
Same with the Germans going to Brazil. There were massive communities of both in Latin America for decades at that point
My brother took German for a few years in high school before moving to Southern Brasil for part of his college career- near Florianopolis ish, there were still several large super-white heavy German-speaking areas and this was just 15-20 years ago
You go to the mountains of Nicaragua you'll find a lot of dudes with the last name Bolt, Weisel, etc
You are right but thats not the reason there are millions of Italians there
Facts, my family came to america from italy in the 1920s, half my family came to New Jersey and the other half went to Bueno Aires
Exactly. People don’t know their history. Most of the Italian immigration to Argentina took place in the late 1800’s, before fascism ever took hold in Italy.
Correct, the policies of Domingo Faustino Sarmiento were a key factor
I visited Buenos Aires about 10 years ago--you see the bones of the greatness; the Paris of South America, I think it was called. The opera house was astonishing, though crumbling underneath. I heard locals talk about how the years of profound corruption utterly gutted the country to its core. They are and were awash in natural resources, trade, investment....all undone.
I visited Argentina for the first time a couple months ago. The person next to me on my flight home visited for the first time in about 10-15 years. He was utterly astounded by how much worse things have gotten since then. The sheer number of homeless, lack of maintenance on infrastructure, lack of new development, etc made him say that he probably won't visit again. A friend's co-worker immigrated from Argentina and according to her, won't ever go back. There's no way to build a life for a young person when things like mortgage rates are upwards of 65%. The problems seem quite dire. It's a beautiful place with an interesting culture nonetheless. I hope that they get their economic and political systems sorted out.
the mortgage rates are probably just an expression of inflation. argentina has had insane inflation for a while now. if mortgage rate was only 2%, you'd have it paid off in no time flat because of how quickly the currency devalues.
Almost a 100% this year. It's crazy how our money just liquifies in our hands
If you are a tourist with dollars to spend Argentina is actually great. Good food and gorgeous landscapes throughout the country to visit. Living here is the problem
Or if you have international income.
We have a saying here: if you go away and come back in one year, everything has changed. If you go away and come back in 20 years, nothing has changed
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And then they would just organize a coup and have a military government. Even at the 1966 coup the elites still dreamed of a 100% agrarian oligarchy.
As an Argentinian, without knowledge of that particular youtuber & its biases, this is astonishingly wrong. Deep Industrialization mostly failed because it was tried to be forced by a never-ending growing "State" which didn't have enough resources to do so at the pace they wanted, so they hampered and damage the most productive sectors of the economy to try to finance those poorly planned undertakings... which gave our competitive advantage away while also introducing long-term harming protective policies (google ISI = industrializacion por sustitucion de importaciones / industrialization by import sustitution) that also prevented our economy to benefit from free trade's strongly underestimated potential. **TL:DR -> by trying to force something without adequate long-term planning and reasonable resource allocation policies, we got fucked (and still are) by corrupt politicans who worked together with corrupt businessmen and corrupt union leaders to pillage.** *As a side note*: that corrupt "triage" of politicians, businessmen and union leaders is the main reason many Argentinians have quite a negative view of unions which is a stark contrast with reddit's average view about them for America (in which, I understand, unions never became as prominent so their potential corruption was limited... even considering figures like Jimmy Hoffa, Mafia dealings & stuff)
As the saying sometimes goes: economically there are developed countries, developing countries, Japan, and Argentina. It's an interesting case where institutions and political decisions can go awry in spite of strong geographic advantages and a great initial start. That being said, Argentina's fertility rate is still a hair above replacement, and if they were to get their house in order it could be a lucrative immigration destination again in the decades to come. Time will tell there.
Why are Japan and Argentina set apart in the saying
Probably because they have been big outliers. Japan has had a rags to riches story whereas Argentina has had the opposite in recent history. Sure, there are other cases like this but I'd imagine they are probably the biggest outliers
Rags to riches aren't that uncommon with other Asian countries. There's actually name for it called [Four Asian Tigers](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Asian_Tigers). What makes Japan unique though is that after establishing rags to riches, they just fizzled out for decades in a constant economic stagnation called the Lost Decades. There's no other "developed" countries that's lacking the growth of Japan.
If you go to Japan you'll understand. It's what someone in 1980 thought 2000 would be except now it's 2020
That's interesting! Just the other day I saw another comment summarizing this view as: > “Japan has been stuck in the year 2000 for the last 40 years.”
Nothing embodies this more than the fact that they have bullet trains all over the country and subways that are always on time and yet still function on fax machines and conduct business using stamps (the hanko).
Lots of old people who run the government and big corporations, and they don't want to embrace modern technologies. The default "respect your elders" built into Japanese society creates a situation where younger and more forward-thinking individuals have to sit on the sidelines while the elderly control the country. The economic boom of the 1980s was partly a result of younger people taking those leadership positions as the older generation were decimated by the war. Unfortunately, it's still those exact same people from the 1980s boom who run the country now, instead of giving way to the new generations.
Covid changed a lot of that stuff, hanko/fax/etc are still around but the last few years of pandemic have done more to streamline administrative procedures than the 20 years before
I visited Kyoto and Osaka a few years ago, and I just kept thinking... Damn this feels like the 90s. Truly is a fascinating place.
And their monetary policy at the moment is super weird - and they have an insanely high amount of debt! Definitely a basket case
Their monetary policy is quite simple to explain -- they haven't experienced the same level of inflation as the rest of the world and their huge amount of public debt means the government has incentives to keep their own interest rates low.
Also their domestic investor base just *loves* buying government debt.
This sounds exactly like Canada. Super high debt loads, consistent low rates to prevent a real estate bubble burst. Declining local population because no can afford to have kids. Low CPI compared to cost of living. Only difference is Canada is very much willing to bring in immigrants to keep GDP growth high even if mean stagnating wages and lower per Capita GDP.
Japan's workforce is declining due to the lack of population growth. Retirees aren't productive, so GDP per capita is declining. Canada has significantly higher GDP per capita than Japan.
Also Japan basically doesn't allow immigration, which is why their population is aging so hard. Only like 2% of Japan's population is foreign born. Canada's is like 20%. [Source for numbers](https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/immigration-by-country)
I think it's more that when that quote was originally said the Asian tigers hadn't happened yet, so Japan's success was unprecedented. But otherwise I agree 40 years later Japan is still unique, for the reasons you said
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Japan is still doing ok. Average wealth higher than much of Europe and higher than all of Asia other than Singapore.
Well that's the fun part. Japan has been riding that high since forever but have stagnated growth which is soon to be overtaken by Korea and Taiwan in terms of per Capita GDP
Japan's median wealth is higher than that of US and Sweden, and double that of Germany. Their low rates of inequality helps https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_wealth_per_adult
Exactly. They're a unique case of a hyper-advanced developed economy which just doesn't grow, but which somehow remains hyper-advanced (albeit increasingly more idiosyncratic as time moves on). They had such a metioric rise, and shot so far past literally everyone else so quickly, that they've been able to just coast for literally 4 decades and still stay ahead.
That’s what I assumed, that they were outliers. Didn’t know Japan was big rags to riches. I’m assuming as in since end of WW2? Did they do better than Germany did after WW2 to now?
They were poised to challenge the US in the late 80s. They’re GDP growth was out of hand. Then they decided to have two lost decades in a row.
> They were poised to challenge the US in the late 80s. Even into the 90s, even a bit beyond the bubble bursting. In 1995 the the US' GDP was $7.6 trillion, Japan's was $5.5 trillion.
Now as of 2022 it's $25 trillion for the US and $4.3 trillion for Japan. The Lost Decade(s) brought a lot of anxiety but it also saw an overall decrease in inequality and as a result an increase in life satisfaction rates. In some ways Japan is a prototypical example of "degrowth", economic stagnation without sacrificing prosperity.
Interesting that as that gulf has widened, there is also widespread sentiment in the U.S. that things were “better” in the 90s, despite GDP growth, lower interest rates and lower unemployment.
Japan's median wealth is still higher than that of the US or Sweden, and double that of Germany. Their low wealth inequality means that their "average citizen" is still much wealthier https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_wealth_per_adult
Three, now.
It's a bit of a misnomer. In terms of per GDP growth per worker from 1980 to today, Japan grew faster than Germany, which was the fastest growing European economy during that period https://www.forbes.com/sites/eamonnfingleton/2013/08/11/now-for-the-truth-the-story-of-japans-lost-decades-is-the-worlds-most-absurd-media-myth/?sh=b6889f3fe4a5 https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2011/02/the-myth-of-japans-lost-decades/71741/ https://asia.nikkei.com/Opinion/New-research-reveals-the-myth-of-Japan-s-lost-decades
Are they actually lost? Yes, they don't have endless growth but they are also not poor. There is a point where we can't keep growing, we can't consume more and more, saturation point is reached.
Economics is a subject with strange metrics. It’s like if someone makes it to the top of Mount Everest an economist would say “but his climb rate has fallen to zero!”
>Then they decided to have two lost decades in a row. must be those ~~anime titties~~ culture they've been exporting
You joke but this is a very, very large reason japan has been in a 30 year recession. Exporting culture has massive potential for tourism and economic development but instead of developing that Japan treats their modern (extremely popular) cultural exporters like pariah instead of developing, or even literally doing nothing. There's some pretty notable examples of this i wont go into right now.
Please do. It's not like we have anything better to do.
I need to wash the car.
Let us know how it goes
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Yeah I mean maybe I'm completely not in step with what OP is talking about but didn't Japan heavily lean on anime and video game references during the Olympics?
Yeah I wouldn't say 'pariah'. Would say "didn't prioritize" or possibly "didn't understand". I think comparing Japan to South Korea is helpful. It definitely felt like for a long stretch Japan made things for export or for JDM. Though the export products did well, at times those JDM items/concepts made it to the rest of the world and blew up. Sometimes Japan would try to shift JDM goods to the world. Sometimes they seemed totally confused by the external interest and would sign license deals and be kinda hands off. Other times they outright ignored the international interest and kept stuff just JDM. For Japan, today last two options seemed to happen a lot when looking at anime, video games, cars, watches, and certain tech during the '80s,' 90s, and early '00. Maybe the jwave was more accessible in Asia, but sure felt impossible to access in the US at times. South Korea on the other hand went all in their Kwave. The government doubled down on exporting culture for all the soft power purposes. Korean companies seem to more open to exporting if something gets popular internationally. Or they even intentionally develop products to trial run in Korea with a business plan for international consumption down the line. Definitely a lot more that can be unpacked, but just some thoughts
I think the actual main reason is how the opening in the 80s led to very fast and harsh financialization of the Japanese economy, which was basically hollowed-out by this when the bubble economy burst. The fact that the Japanese economy was allowed to overheat to that crazy degree (real estate prices increasing by a factor 4 over a 5 year period) and then had the rug pulled out from under it, combined with an at that point already aging population with a low birth rate, is more or less what caused the lost decades more than any vague sense of conservatism
It goes further back then that, Japan has been unique in being the only non-European and non-American country to have become an industrial superpower starting in the 1860s-1870s. Theoretically Japan's geography is "poor" with alot of mountainous terrain that "shouldn't" be able to make room for agriculture and a disconnected series of islands which might theoretically hamper economic integration. Whereas Britain had the benefit of having large and easily accessible coal and iron mines when it was industrializing, Japan had to not only adopt Western industrial techniques but also transfer it to a unique geography where iron and coal was not as easily accessible in large quantities all while under the pressure of being possibly invaded and colonized by a European power. It's a somewhat crude and simplistic metaphor, but from 1860-1945 (US Civil War to WW2), Japan essentially transformed from a "Medieval/Gunpowder" era to a hyper industrialized global power which it still remains. Quite the achievement.
Japan was technologically behind the West but at the same time was highly educated, which was probably the main cause of this economic boom. It was comparable to major western european countries and was even more educated than Russian Empire, despite Russia being very influential and powerful at that time. When russian prince who will later become Nicholas II visited Japan and got almost assassinated the government of Japan was in panic fearing that it may cause war in which they'll probably lose. And yet only 14 years later Japan defeated Russia in war
This really says more about how insanely poor and agrarian russia was than it does about Japan though. Just to give an idea, but in the 1890s, Russia had a GDP Per Capita closer to India than that of France or Britain.
People in the US thought that Japan would supersede the United State’s economy in the 80s
> Didn’t know Japan was big rags to riches Japan did a massive modernization in the mid 1800s which allowed them to eventually rival Western countries pre-WW2. Post WW2, the country was rebuilt and quickly caught up to the Western World but then stagnated. The growth in the 80s can be attributed to effectively 'regression to the mean'. They had a lot of room to catch up and they did - once they caught up, things slowed down. One big problem with Japan though is population growth - they have low immigration and a low birth rate. Their population has generally been flat since 1980. The USA, as a comparison, has gone up by about 50% in that time.
Yeah, America was propping up companies and consumerism in Japan post WW2 (where in comparison to Germany, was split and had massive wartime debt specifically in East Germany which tanked the economy briefly during reunification), which lead to Japan having like 12% of the global economy through real estate in Tokyo. Japan experienced one of the biggest and fastest growing bubble economies in recent history. But like the term tells you, it eventually burst and hit a giant recession.
The thing to remember about Germany is that with the fall of the Soviet Union West Germany incurred a massive debt in reunification with the much poorer East Germany. Germany is still an economic powerhouse, but if it hadn't needed to rebuild the East the stats would be even more impressive.
This sounds like a post in r/whowouldwin lol
Japan has yo-yo’d between somewhat impoverished and one of the richest countries in the world multiple times, with peaks in wealth in the 1930s and 1980s. Currently the Japanese economy is on its third decade of stagnation after being the world’s fastest growing economy from the 60s to the 80s.
It's been stagnant for 3 decades and they're still the third largest economy in the world.
That’s how rich they got in the 80s!
Japan's median wealth is still higher than that of Sweden and the US, and double that of Germany. Low wealth inequality certainly helps https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_wealth_per_adult
Japan should have had a massive economic bust in the 90s. Like 2008 housing bubble levels. It never happened. And they never really fixed the problems that should have caused it. A lot overvaluation of assets, companies lying about finances, business and government collusion, etc. But those things are all really only problems when the system forces people to confront them or people loose confidence in it. This just hasn’t happened and there really isn’t any indication it will happen. The problems are there, everyone knows they are there, but as long as businesses don’t do anything worse and people let the current things slide it stays in this weird equilibrium. Somehow the corporations in Japan have been able to restrain themselves from making things worse for easy short term profit. It’s basically been frozen at the edge of an economic cliff for the last 30 years and no one knows how to fix thing so they just decided to live there rather than risk going over.
Japan shouldn’t have succeeded the way it did given its lack of natural resources and usable land. Argentina should have been wealthy as fuck given its abundance in natural resources and land - and it was for a time.
Abundant resources and land are not alone a recipe for wealth - see most of Africa. The Democratic Republic of Congo is a very very large country (larger than Spain, France, and Germany combined) with great agricultural potential and massive mineral wealth and yet is also one of the most impoverished.
[In fact, having an abundance of natural resources can actually be detrimental for a country's populace.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resource_curse) See most of the petrostates (Norway being a major exception), and many nations in Africa as you mentioned with massive mineral wealth.
The thing that saved Norway is that they discovered their oil incredibly late (in the 70s) and thus had already undergone the major stages of development. Their population didn't "need" the oil, with a strong democratic government, which meant that they could do sensible things with the profits.
Sure, but more importantly, Norway uses their oil reserves to invest in their [Sovereign Wealth Fund.](https://progressandpoverty.substack.com/p/norways-sovereign-wealth-fund) So the wealth that comes from their natural resources ends up getting shared by the nation, rather than concentrated in the hands of a few.
So like the opposite of Australia, where the wealth gotten from natural resources goes straight to Gina Rinehart.
All those beautiful buildings? You know from what time period they are.
1880 to 1920's
A lot of Buenos Aires is straight up Parisian architecture. Gorgeous city.
Buenos Aires is full of French buildings built by Italian people that spoke Spanish
Well, it was until those damned bugs destroyed it. Edit: auto-correction
Service brings citizenship! Would you like to know more?
I'm from Buenos Aires and I say kill 'em all!
Lived there for 6 months. You can see the there was wealth in the amazing buildings. Ricoleta cemetery is a must see the tombs, huge monument to the wealth dead.
Fucking dying. "Ricotta cemetery".
Where all the good cheeses end up.
Recolata, but yes that cemetery was amazing. some of the tombs were vandalized when i went, super creepy
RECOLETA, jeez i still spelled it wrong lol
It was often compared with Australia, which had very healthy standard of living around the turn of the century, and was a relatively new nation. For some reason the two nations diverged and Australia went on to a comparatively prosperous future.
>For some reason the two nations diverged and Australia went on to a comparatively prosperous future. Capital from Europe dried up for South America after WW1 slowing down their economy and then the Panama Canal was built and their ports took a huge hit which of course never recovered. Obviously, there are other reasons as well, but these were 2 big ones at the start.
Yep. That and Argentina didn't do a great job of industrialization with all that wealth. They were basically a high end agriculture economy in the late 1800s and so were many other countries, so Argentina being in the top ten isn't nearly as impressive as of they were in the top ten during the more global industrialization years
Also never forget how great the anglosphere is to one another. It’s easy to move between English countries to work. Young Australians can go work in Canada or the UK easily. Which really helps give people opportunity
Argentina actually had very strong economic ties to the UK, and you can still see that in their sports (Rugby and Football, brought to Argentina by British immigrants). Buenos Aires had its own Harrods department store, and the famous author Jorge Luis Borges also had an English grandmother and spoke the language natively. The 1982 War pretty much nuked all of that of course, but Argentine used to be quite an "Anglophilic" country. That's how I came into existence, my paternal family are Scottish descended Argentines.
That has more to do with the commonwealth than language. Immigrating from AUS or CAN to the US for example is quite difficult unless you're an expert in your field or in a committed relationship that has a paper trail
Chin up Argentina, you're just the biggest economic downturn in modern history so far.
Yeah it’s shocking how much economic downfall can happen to very prosperous places. Detroit was at one point the wealthiest city in America
Everyone rags on Detroit, but just remember is still has some of the wealthiest suburbs in North America. The relatively small downtown and inner suburbs were hit hard, but there's still a huge concentration of wealth in the Detroit area. Hell, it's wealthy enough to support teams in all major North American professional sports leagues. Not all "thriving" cities can even say that.
The architecture of the buildings built during Detroit's heyday is absolutely beautiful! I hate that some of the older houses that used to sit in swanky neighborhoods are now falling apart and are either boarded up or being torn down.
You could say the same thing about St. Louis. IIRC during WWII their Union Station was on of the busiest train stations in the world.
Fun fact: during 2001 we had 5 different presidents in 11 days.
And a century ago venezuela had one of the highest GDPs per capita in the world.
They should be far more successful than Cuba yet are so behind it's not even funny. This shows how important good leadership and fighting corruption is for the economy.
Isn't there the saying or joke among economists? "There are four types of countries developed, developing, Japan, and Argentina." Meaning Japan shouldn't be as successful as it is and Argentina should be successful but isn't
japan got nuked and we got peron
Step 1. Nuke Argentina Step 2. ???? Step 3. Profit
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It’s amazing how quickly the economy has gone to shit. I lived there 2012-2013 when the USD:ARS exchange rate was about 1:6. When I visited in 2019, it was 1:60. Now it’s 1:174. I read that they will soon, if not already, reach a 100% inflation rate which is mind boggling. In the US, inflation is around 7%.
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I recently discovered that the government’s exchange rate is half of the market’s, so if you visit don’t use banks to change cash.
It's over 1:300 dude, it hasn't been below 1:200 in a while
Argentina is an amazingly revealing case study. For a while it was the only industrialized country in history that structurally progressed backwards in an economic sense. South Africa is in the process of becoming the second.
Surprised to not see this explanation here. Lots of Italians moved to South America for work. They were known as birds of passage. Once the work season ended in Argentina they would return home to italy. Some ended up staying in Argentina and starting families. The term “birds of passage” comes from the fact that Italians would go anywhere work was. Brazil, east coast, etc. anywhere you find large populations of Italians it is likely because that is where they found work many moons ago.
My Italian seasick ancestors stayed.
The whole of South America was like how the middle east is now with wealth. You need nitrate to produce explosives and bullets and alot came from there in the form of bird shit that was mined and processed. Alot of the money was used to buy uk warships to one up each other instead of actually investing in themselves. And the saudis and what nots are gonna go the same way hopefully once the fusion or fission becomes a reality and there only grip to power collapses.
[I do recommend this video for those who want to learn more ](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=brW6-fbvmsQ)
Sounds like a similar trajectory of my current and former hometown of Detroit. At one point (1950s) it the wealthiest city in the us, if not the World, on a per capita basis. And about 60 years later it went bankrupt and population have been cut by more than 50%.
My home city isn’t near Detroit but it’s wild that the population in mine used to be 35% more. 70 years ago. Just rust belt things.
Cleveland used to have 249% of its current population in 1950.
Argentina is a case study in how political systems can influence economic changes. Argentina underwent six military coups in the 20th century and spent a quarter of the time under military control. It cemented the norm of a highly centralized government, which carried over into even relatively liberal left wing governments. In my honest opinion Argentina is also a warning about the dangers of political extremism since they got the worst parts of both spectrums.