Been to Argentina over Christmas. My beloved country. My beloved family and friends. That's were it stops.
How is it that my people always find a way to mess it up. I guess everyone's heard about the big economic crash of 2002. Yes, everybody did because people around here keep asking me "Ça va mieux là-bas?" as soon as they learn I come from Argentina. Well, since then the country has been getting slowly out of the mess it was. Economy is getting better, there's jobs and all sorts of stuff to buy in the shops.
The thing is, some smart asses have realized that small shops need coins to operate, simply because they sell small stuff. And as the Argentinean mind is always ready to find a trick to make money out of thin air (meaning somebody else's thin air), there is this bunch of people that decided it was a good idea to hoard coins and then sell them in the black market. Thus creating an unreal exchange rate between Argentine Peso and Argentine Peso. A coin is worthier than a bill and they sell 87 pesos of coins for 100 pesos. Can you bloody believe it?
The result of course is that everyone else loses. Taxi drivers even round down the final amount so as not to have to give you coins (because they don't have them!!). The Banco Central keeps minting coins to feed the market and they keep disappearing. Prime suspects are banks (yes, f***ing bastard banks that took our money from us back in 2002) and bus companies (bus is paid in coins, there's no other way). Actually, some time before I arrived they had discovered that a certain bank or bus company (can't remember which) was hoarding 40 barrels (yes, 40!) of coins. When will we all learn!?!?
Over and out.
How is it that my people always find a way to mess it up. I guess everyone's heard about the big economic crash of 2002. Yes, everybody did because people around here keep asking me "Ça va mieux là-bas?" as soon as they learn I come from Argentina. Well, since then the country has been getting slowly out of the mess it was. Economy is getting better, there's jobs and all sorts of stuff to buy in the shops.
The thing is, some smart asses have realized that small shops need coins to operate, simply because they sell small stuff. And as the Argentinean mind is always ready to find a trick to make money out of thin air (meaning somebody else's thin air), there is this bunch of people that decided it was a good idea to hoard coins and then sell them in the black market. Thus creating an unreal exchange rate between Argentine Peso and Argentine Peso. A coin is worthier than a bill and they sell 87 pesos of coins for 100 pesos. Can you bloody believe it?
The result of course is that everyone else loses. Taxi drivers even round down the final amount so as not to have to give you coins (because they don't have them!!). The Banco Central keeps minting coins to feed the market and they keep disappearing. Prime suspects are banks (yes, f***ing bastard banks that took our money from us back in 2002) and bus companies (bus is paid in coins, there's no other way). Actually, some time before I arrived they had discovered that a certain bank or bus company (can't remember which) was hoarding 40 barrels (yes, 40!) of coins. When will we all learn!?!?
Over and out.
No comments:
Post a Comment