I still think I don't understand Argentina but after talking to a passionate Peronismo I think I start to finally understand.
Yes, every foreigner seem to find difficult to understand Argentina. Maybe we are a little incomprehensible...
Basically the idea here is that you can protect against outside market forces with protectionism. By putting a tax on outside imports you can also build a local industry to protect against the outside world. If the UK was dependant on Argentina for food like Tibets allies for China it wouldn't be able to have the Malvinas.
We have political movements sustaining something like that, indeed. But you also have others sustaining quite the opposite. Our major problem may be that we don't have a lot in the middle. Here everything seems to be an extreme or the other. You can be black or white, peronista or antiperonista, River or Boca, religious or antireligios and so it goes...
Also protectionism is not such a crazy idea nor are we the only ones trying to protect ourselves. EEUU itself has been historically subsiding their farmers at the same time they was preaching and enforcing their free market religion on every other country out there...
And latests collective protectionism measures seem to have been working somewhat fine for Mercosur allies, at least we can say that latest world crisis (Greece default now, and the EEUU housing bubble before) hasn't been terrible here, if they has been felt at all...
People still don't have a massive amount in their bank accounts... it still seems like a cash society.
Yes, I already said that people has been robbed so much, so many times, and most of the times by the banks themselves, that somewhat this fear becomes almost understandable...
I expect there will be a crash again... but I don't think it will be for a while.
Everything can happen. But I hope this time we're doing a little better...
Education has all the faults in the system from Europe and America were copied but in addition haven't been updated in the same way. My girlfriend wasn't taught about electronics for example and has no clue regarding how much energy a laptop uses if plugged in, there's no financials taught and so on. Everybody here is into electronics but it's much rarer to meet someone who know's much about computers than it is in the USA. Electronics are much more of a status symbol but there's less addiction/reliance to technology (which is great).
I can see what you mean, but I believe the effect is more pronounced on girls, because of a strongly patriarchal system. Almost all Argentinian girlfriends fits almost perfectly on your description, but I don't think this is so true for all men...
Things are changing extremely fast though and it seems like only a few years and there could be an explosion. You can get Android tablets for less than $150 even here with import controls and flicking through a flyer for mobile phones nearly all are assembled here locally so Android phones are also coming down in price.
That's what the government are trying to enforce with some of the protectionism. They want foreign companies to come here to build their stuff, so they can catch some of the added value... In some cases it goes well, but not always...
Many things are very expensive here and I have not much idea of where people get the money to buy it all from.
Inequity is the answer. Terribly pyramidal distribution of wealth. In all latinoamerica you'll find a few people unimaginable rich, and a lot of people unspeakable poor. It also happens in the "first world", but we don't see it a lot on tv... But sometimes a Katrina can bring it to the surface...
Certainly Bitcoin is useful here now for all things digital. For example, paying for webhosting. But if you want to buy anything from abroad you're always wondering will it get across the border.
That's true. Theoretically anything below 999U$D sent through postal services should pass just fine. But you can't never know for sure.
