What I learned today

Wow, today was interesting. I learned some shocking things about Argentina.

So, I went to school (on time...), and it turns out that the lesson for today was to watch a movie about the 2001 Argentine economic crisis. Before watching this, I knew that Argentina had been in an economic pit for some years, but I never really knew how deep and serious it was not to mention how it came about. Today my world was rocked. I hope I can do the same for you by writing about what I learned.

I won't try and explain the entire chronology of what happened in Argentina, just because it's very complicated (and political) and it spans back many years. Put simply, during the 90s, the Argentine economy was the prize of Latin America. It was growing, had low inflation rates, etc. At the time, Buenos Aires was the most expensive city to live in Latin America. Part of this was due to the fixed exchange rate with the American dollar of 1 peso per US dollar (aka "dollarization"). However, in 2001, the government announced that it would not be able to pay back the $132 billion foreign debt, and that it would cut government jobs and spending. This resulted in a nearly 20% unemployment rate along with 13% pay cuts for government workers. The next year, Buenos Aires became the CHEAPEST city in Latin America to live in.

Some repercussion of these series of events have been slashed pensions and very menial jobs that offered little or no security along with severely reduced government services. As a result, in December of 2001, massive protests against the government action and policies left 20 people dead in Buenos Aires. Since then, everyone has been blaming everyone else for what happened. Some central figures for blame are: the Argentine gov't for corruption, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for giving poor advice, and more. The one thing that all of the arguments have in common is the failure of dollarization.

To this very day the effects are still felt. Only three days before I arrived in Cordoba, there were actually riots in the city (began peacefully, didn't end so well) due to more unfavorable government action concerning social security and benefits for retirees (Everything is fine now Mom, I promise).

I don't want to write too much more, since I'm getting the above information from this website. You can read about the rest there. I wanted to make sure I had all of the information correct before I posted anything because the movie from which I found out about this was entirely in Spanish. I still don't trust my spanish skills THAT much to have been able to write with confidence about the matter.

Anyway, this new knowledge has dramatically changed my view of the country and it's history. Like much of Latin America, Argentina has joined the ranks of those who have a tumultous recent history full of military coupes and economic woes in the last half of a century. However, I don't regret coming here because I really had no idea about this. I'm actually very surprised that the material was never taught to me in school. Awareness is a good thing.