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During last four years, a curious thing evolved in Argentina - huge and completely public black market for money. For a totally illegal operation, the level of openness was unbelievable - not only there were webpages where you could look up the rate in real time, but Google maps layers with exact positions of illegal exchange "offices" were freely available, there was even an Android app for the whole thing - not to mention that the "blue rate" for "unofficial" dollar exchange run daily in the evening news on statewide TV. The reason for the black market's existence was easy to understand - Cristina Kirchner's populistic government kept the official rate of peso to dollar low to create an illusion of wealth by preventing Argentines from buying foreigner currency. Nothing makes you happier than the knowledge that your hard-earned pesos could buy you a lot of dollars even though you can't actually get those dollars, right ...?
I learned about this situation rather randomly in summer 2012 (back then when it wasn't featured in Lonely Planet) in a small Bolivian border town where everyone and their grandmother was offering Argentine pesos at extraordinarily great rates - because here, just outside Cristina's realm, no-one could force them do follow the wishful official rate. So I ran to an ATM, withdrew what I could in Bolivianos, immediately bought peso with them and felt like I am robbing a whole country.
Not much time has passed and I learned that the "arbolitos" - the guys who stand (resembling little trees) on the Florida street in Buenos Aires in broad daylight shouting "cambio, cambio" to anyone who looks remotely interested - are in fact pretty straight up and fine people and that while technically illegal, buying from them is actually faster and easier than going to a bank and maybe even more reliable. The first time I went there, I was making jokes on facebook about my impeding arrest - and was acutally quite thrilled by the process - the last time it was more of a chore than anything, because I realized how mundane this activity actually is for the common argentinean.
This whole situation had an unexpected advantage for me (and anyone adventurous enough while on a business trip to Argentina, I'd guess) as my superiors kinda can't ask me to exchange money on a black market, so they have to reimburse all my expenses using the official exchange rate. This may seem like me ripping off my company, but it really was just my personal risk for my personal gain - if it turned out the money so obtained was counterfeited or if I had gotten robbed in the process, the loss would be on me, of course. Nothing bad ever happened, so this turned out to be a pretty nice source of income over the years.
Well, this party is officially over as of today as some dickhead called Mauricio Macri decided that if the people actually elected him president of Argentina, he should start running the country properly. Naturally, one of the first things he did was to end this charade and let people trade the peso freely. He announced this move yesterday in the evening - smartly waiting after the markets had closed - when the official exchange rate was around 9.8 pesos for a dollar. Immediately this morning, the peso plummeted to around 14.5, which was the black market value, followed by a rather unexpected strengthening to around 14 per dollar later in the day.
What does all of this mean? A couple of hundred, or maybe even thousand people who made up the black market are immediately out of business. I am no longer gonna make a crazy amount of money on every work trip to Argentina. But more importantly, ordinary Argentineans can now legally buy foreign currency, not having to rely with their savings on the ever-unreliable peso or the black market dealers. Even more importantly, the foreign trade of Argentina is going to finally reboot. The restrictions on capital movements accompanying the exchange regulations (lifted as well now) were critically constricting both export and import of goods - the last couple of years it was almost comically impossible to obtain anything not made locally in Argentina while the export was being murdered by the unrealistic price of the goods imposed by the artificially "strengthened peso".
The opposition is rambling about all the inflation this "devaluation of peso" is going to cause, but honestly, this is largely just a big steaming pile of crap. The black market rate was the foreign exchange rate for a long time for all practical uses and purposes. The pesos in people's pockets are not suddenly worth 40% less than before, because nobody was going to buy them for the inflated price anyway. The paper price of imported goods will be higher, but at least there will be actual good to buy, not just empty promises.
The future now seems a little unclear. When I am going to land in Buenos Aires on December 25, I am not quite sure how much my dollars will be worth, when and how much to exchange or whether it is the time to start using my credit card in the country after 4 years of hiatus after all. But in general, the future for the Argentineans is now that much brighter. Let's hope this is only the a start of a series of much needed profound changes in Argetinean economy.
 
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May I quote?
"robbing a country"
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You've been robbing my country! You bad person! 
Sorry I don't comment anything serious, but I am literally sick of this topic and the constant shitstorm that it's been whenever you discuss it online or in person... I just wanna say I hope you enjoy visiting us  (And too bad I dont live in Buenos Aires, I'd invite you for a beer or something, it would be fun to meet a fellow TLer!)
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This is just another neoliberal conspiracy.
Am I doing this right?
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On December 18 2015 13:17 Silvana wrote:You've been robbing my country! You bad person! Sorry I don't comment anything serious, but I am literally sick of this topic and the constant shitstorm that it's been whenever you discuss it online or in person... I just wanna say I hope you enjoy visiting us (And too bad I dont live in Buenos Aires, I'd invite you for a beer or something, it would be fun to meet a fellow TLer!)
Don't worry, I just wrote it out because it's an interesting thing many people are probably not aware off, any kind of reply is good
I do in fact enjoy Argentina a lot. Granted, I am not seeing it through pink glasses and understand that there are a lot of problems (some of the affecting my work from time to time), it is still a largely enjoyable place. The nature is awesome in all so many ways and while the general laid-back vibe is sometimes annoying when I need to get something done, it kinda works well with me most of the time, especially when I am there just for fun. It's just a very easy place to be.
Where do you live, anyway?
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On December 19 2015 01:32 opisska wrote:Show nested quote +On December 18 2015 13:17 Silvana wrote:You've been robbing my country! You bad person! Sorry I don't comment anything serious, but I am literally sick of this topic and the constant shitstorm that it's been whenever you discuss it online or in person... I just wanna say I hope you enjoy visiting us (And too bad I dont live in Buenos Aires, I'd invite you for a beer or something, it would be fun to meet a fellow TLer!) Don't worry, I just wrote it out because it's an interesting thing many people are probably not aware off, any kind of reply is good I do in fact enjoy Argentina a lot. Granted, I am not seeing it through pink glasses and understand that there are a lot of problems (some of the affecting my work from time to time), it is still a largely enjoyable place. The nature is awesome in all so many ways and while the general laid-back vibe is sometimes annoying when I need to get something done, it kinda works well with me most of the time, especially when I am there just for fun. It's just a very easy place to be. Where do you live, anyway?
Glad to know that! We have a lot of awesome places in here, like mountains, beach, glacier, waterfall, etc. Although everything is very far away and it is a pain to go from one place to the other if you have only a few days to visit. I myself struggle to find the correct place-time holidays combo because I can never get enough free days at work to make the trip worth it, especially when the airlines are so Buenos Aires centered (I live in Bahia Blanca, 700km away from BA).
I guess one of those problems you mention is insecurity. It's true there's a high level of insecurity in the streets and it can get pretty ugly if you are in the wrong place, but if you are very careful with your stuff and don't go to said places then you are more than fine!
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Bahia Blanca, that's some off-the-beaten-path place! I can see your pain with the travel. Once we rented a car in Neuqen for a week for a "small circuit of the nearby areas" and we ended up clocking 4500 kilometers on it. I am surprised that Hertz has not banned me from the unlimited-mileage deals - hey, this is a nice place to mention that there actually is a car rental company in Argentina that has me banned from their services But the remoteness is just part of the charm! The greatest reminder of the size of the country are the roadside indicators - Malargue (the place I go for work) is on ruta 40 and the posts read something around 3220. The whole road has some 5000 kilometers, that's really unbelievable.
I have probably now so far that the biggest threat to me in Argentina is false security if anything - the feeling of familiarity can be misleading I guess. But I have never had a single bad experience in this regard. One big advantage of mine is that I really do look local, I am not even raising an eyebrow when people ask me for directions as it happens on a daily basis (and when it is Mendoza/Malargue/BA Microcentro, I usually even know the answer).
The problems I was talking about are mostly related to work. Corruption is quite something in this country, so any paperwork is a nightmare and importing equipment has been nigh impossible the last couple of years and the success required us to throw quite a lot of money in the right direction. And even small things just don't really work in the way we are used to from Europe, there is a lot of clientelism, a lot of business relations are more based on personal friendships and gains, it's not very often just "I want this and offer you a fair price". And then I talk with my local friends and see the challenges they face in their day-to-day work ... But I don't want to sound too negative, because I think that the changes are already underway and things are visible getting better.
And it's also not relevant, because this time I am finally coming just a tourist, nothing else, no stress, just climbing the shit out of some really high hills.
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oppiska: bridging cultures
So you don't think writing this has anything to do with you unloading a past vice?
Not being aggro, just asking, you know? for your own sake.
ps: read "saké" not "sake" in that last sentence
pps: i'm never understood, the first sentence is to be taken literally, not as a dish/pun (well.. admittedly a bit of a pun too  )
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fldrn: I don't really consider this a "vice" - things are not wrong just because they are technically illegal. If I adopted such mindset, I would probably have no time to do anything else but to write out confessions
On an unrelated note, self-indulgently watching the blog ratings, it's easy to see that someone gives me always a 1-star rating (otherwise the math would not add up). But there is never a comment "this blog is complete trash". If you have something negative to say to me, do it! Don't hide behind anonymous ratings, hide behind your anonymous internet identity instead!
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EPT
