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[Turin Turambar]

That is pure propaganda. The country got in debt thanks to right wing regimes supported by USA, after that there was a neo liberal government in the 90s that completely destroyed the economy of the country and caused the 2001 economic collapse.

Kirchner's government, with some flaws, was a huge success in restoring economic and political stability to the country with their protectionist measures.

Yep. Nothing like discredit a long article full of arguments and theories examining 100 years of economic history like saying 'it's pure propaganda!". You clearly don't need to say anything else.

/s

 

[Silent Chief]

There's 3 ways to fuel an economy, through exports, government spending and through market capitalization. Government spending is not sustainable. You can't legislate the stock market one way or another and every attempt at manipulation will ultimately lead to a correction. There's always going to be a shortage of cash in an economy with a trade deficit, the more you print the less valuable it is.

The world economy took a tumble in 2008 and Argentina is dependent on the dollar.

Still, export taxes is a very bad idea. That's the opposite of what Trump wants to do.
It's an Argentina Last policy.

 

[petran79]

Every single time? where are you getting that data? Europe has been for decades applying a thing called Social Democracy(yeah it's democratic socialism) with great results, the only problem was the neo-liberalism in America that crashed and burned the financial market (do i need to thank the right wing god Ronald Reagan? yes), leading to inept leaders deciding to save banks using public debt. When that happened the European right went after the stupidity called Austerity and tanked the economy, fortunately they seem to be willing to realize that maybe we need to go left economically again.

Social Democracy was also an answer to the Communist regimes. Their rhetoric those years was also far more leftist and populist than today. They even borrowed terms from Communists. If you listen to a social democrat and a conservative now, differences are not so many.

 

[Billy_Pilgrim]

Amazing, Gaf even has a Kirchner defence force.

 

[Boney]

Yet on a dialy basis we're told we should aim to be Chile.

It's not surprising that mainstream media and financial magazines would lobby for some radical liberization as if it wouldn't be on the interest on the economic elite.

GDP per capita is one of the most worthless measurements to assess a country's quality of life.

The social progress index (2015) http://www.socialprogressimperative.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/SPI-2016-Main-Report1.pdf
That accounts for 1) Basic Human needs (a. Nutrition and Basic Medical Care , b. Water and Sanitation, c. Shelter, d. Personal safety), 2) Foundations of Wellbeing (a. access to basic knowledge, b. Access to information and communication, c) Health and Wellness, d) Enviromental Quality & 3) Opportunity (a) Personal rights, b) Personal Freedom of CHoice, c) Tolerance and Inclusion, d) Access to advanced education) accounts for much more attributes than simply economic growth that hides even the most basic facts as wealth distribution and public spending.

In the latest report, Chile ranks 1st in Latin America with a very commendable 82.2, with opportunity being it's better attribute (no thanks to access to advanced education), Uruguay and Costa Rica follow closely with an 80.12 and Argentina ranks 4th at the very tail of High Social Progress with 75.20. And if memory serves me, it has been dropping the last couple of years.

Costa Rica also has the highest over performance in the world when we compare the SPI to countries with similar GDP/capita and Chile is barely above average in that regard.

 

[The Hermit]

My parents left Argentina during the dictatorial regime and moved to Brasil.

I have 30 years, and it's very noticeable the decadency of the country. And, like Brasil, the main problem there is corruption.

 

[Fuchsdh]

I think in terms of historical issues, this line is probably the most important:

But three deep-lying explanations help to illuminate the country’s diminishment. Firstly, Argentina may have been rich 100 years ago but it was not modern.

The bell époque of Argentina was a historical fluke, not a trend, because their underlying foundation for that success was old and rotted. It's definitely the chief takeaway any country can take when talking about cementing their economic and social gains.

 

[Valhelm]

That's the usual business with socialism - it starts great by spending money country doesn't have and then it's time to pay the debts.

Argentina's economy has never been remotely socialist

 

[Mr.Mike]

It's not surprising that mainstream media and financial magazines would lobby for some radical liberization as if it wouldn't be on the interest on the economic elite.

GDP per capita is one of the most worthless measurements to assess a country's quality of life.

The social progress index (2015) http://www.socialprogressimperative.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/SPI-2016-Main-Report1.pdf
That accounts for 1) Basic Human needs (a. Nutrition and Basic Medical Care , b. Water and Sanitation, c. Shelter, d. Personal safety), 2) Foundations of Wellbeing (a. access to basic knowledge, b. Access to information and communication, c) Health and Wellness, d) Enviromental Quality & 3) Opportunity (a) Personal rights, b) Personal Freedom of CHoice, c) Tolerance and Inclusion, d) Access to advanced education) accounts for much more attributes than simply economic growth that hides even the most basic facts as wealth distribution and public spending.

In the latest report, Chile ranks 1st in Latin America with a very commendable 82.2, with opportunity being it's better attribute (no thanks to access to advanced education), Uruguay and Costa Rica follow closely with an 80.12 and Argentina ranks 4th at the very tail of High Social Progress with 75.20. And if memory serves me, it has been dropping the last couple of years.

Costa Rica also has the highest over performance in the world when we compare the SPI to countries with similar GDP/capita and Chile is barely above average in that regard.

I'd be among the first to argue about the inadequacy of GDP as a measure of progress in a lot of situations. It measures how much a country produces but doesn't say anything about how socially beneficial the things being produced are. But there's a lot of subjectivity behind what might be considered socially beneficial. So GDP provides a relatively objective baseline to start from.

Your report applies one subjective interpretation of how well production is being used and brings a number of non-economic factors into its measurement, and I don't find it disagreeable. But I will argue that increasing GDP generally increases well-being. And beyond just looking at where things are right now, looking to the future it seems Chile will improve its SPI because of its increasing GDP.

But yeah, I'd live in a lot of South American countries before most countries in the world. That doesn't mean they wouldn't benefit from liberalization, institutional stability and a few more technocrats.

 

[Akoi]

I lived there from August 2008 to April 2010. I was told right before I got there the farmers went on strike and there was no food in the supermarkets (mostly only hotdogs and processed food which Argentina has never been big on)

The people are great there but man when I was there I remember anything electronic was like at a minimum 2x as expensive down there vs the USA and they still were selling Ps2 systems for like $200-300 and most if not all of them had mod chips pre-installed in them.(because the price of legal games down there was insane)

Lots of people told me that Argentina is the way it is because they never created real manufacturing jobs there and they mostly export things like tomatoes then pay way more to import things like ketchup (an example, not literally) for way more than they sold the components for.

I remember gas was super expensive for cars and lots of people were converting their cars to use natural gas instead of gasoline.

My parents came and picked me up in the end and they had to pay some crazy tax for just coming into the country and when they exchanged they money at the airport they had to keep the recipt because exchanging pesos to dollars was super regulated.

I met my wife down there and when she came up here in 2014 she couldn't find any way to exchange of her money from down there here in the states (like literally every bank here in the USA would not convert pesos to USD) so she left all of her money to her parents. She also had some debit card with some crazy tax tied to it if she used it here. She also told me that when you live down there (back before Macri) you were super restricted to what you could buy online from other countries and how much you could spent annually there.

We both hope the country gets better some day, but it is going to take a long time to recover from this mess.

 

[Boney]

I'd be among the first to argue about the inadequacy of GDP as a measure of progress in a lot of situations. It measures how much a country produces but doesn't say anything about how socially beneficial the things being produced are. But there's a lot of subjectivity behind what might be considered socially beneficial. So GDP provides a relatively objective baseline to start from.

Your report applies one subjective interpretation of how well production is being used and brings a number of non-economic factors into its measurement, and I don't find it disagreeable. But I will argue that increasing GDP generally increases well-being. And beyond just looking at where things are right now, looking to the future it seems Chile will improve its SPI because of its increasing GDP.

That's right, GDP is obviously an important part of the puzzle and can help shape certain policies. I'm a little jumpy around it because of how much importance it has had as an equivalent to progress by many economists. Costa Rica's overperformance is one good example of the efficiency in which GDP can be put to use. The indicators constructed are obviously subjective but sorted through rigorous bibliography, taking a multidimensional approach to poverty from Sen and having it measure outputs instead of inputs.

Overall, the Social Progress Index allows an evaluation of the effectiveness, or lack of effectiveness, with which a country’s economic success is turned into social progress and vice versa

Traditional national income measures, such as Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita, fail to capture the overall progress of societies. This limitation has been well documented in reports such as Mismeasuring Our Lives. 10 On the other hand, the evidence of the last half century tells a largely positive story about how economic development has played a crucial role in advancing societies in terms of reducing poverty.

Despite the overall correlation between economic progress and social progress, the variability of performance among countries for comparable levels of GDP per capita is considerable. Hence, economic performance alone does not fully explain social progress.

Benchmarking is country-specific. Each country is compared to a unique set of peers. Strong or weak performance on relative social progress is possible at all stages of development. The method for determining strengths and weaknesses is comparable across countries, permitting us to identify countries that are over- and underperforming relative to its GDP per capita.

There are good reasons to believe that the correlation between economic development and social progress is partly or heavily due to the fact that economic growth provides more resources to invest in social issues, in terms of private consumption, private investment, and public investment. However, there is clearly a causal relationship in the other direction: better social outcomes in terms of health, education, personal safety, opportunity, and others are essential to productivity in the society and better economic performance. The relationship between economic development and social progress is therefore complex, and causation may go in both directions. Understanding this complex two-way causation is a continuing agenda for future research.

In Costa Rica, the top over performer on the global Social Progress Index has taken the lead by mapping the whole country by the Social Progress Index Cantonal. This amazing and living tool has revealed regional differences in the 81 cantons, with the border and coastal cantons laggards in social progress. But even more important, the data have challenged the whole country to raise its standards and try to achieve social progress for all its population. This energy is evident in the strategic support of the government, specifically Costa Rican Vice President Ana Helena Chacon, some ministries, and key actors in the local context.

In addition, the Social Progress Index Cantonal has served to empower local governments throughout the country. The Institute of Municipal Promotion and Advice (IFAM in Spanish) is engaged in an active leadership training process for 81 municipalities, including most of the mayors, to familiarize community leaders with the tool. This effort encourages leaders to develop strategic planning based on Social Progress Index data oriented to address the local needs of the cantons and improve the quality of life of thousands of Costa Ricans. As an additional innovative effort, the Index feeds the Costa Rica Propone platform, which is aimed at designing a system of Costa Rican social innovation that can be used as a lever for regional development. This initiative is also led by the Vice President of the Republic and the Presidential Council for Innovation and Human Talent

This little tidbit from the same document shows how important data is to empower local agency.

I'm trying to find Argentina's score card to get a little bit back on track.

 

[Boney]

Found the 2014 report

 

[Elchele]

Maybe the first few years, after that it was all downhill and we were going the way of Venezuela.

According to who? Ah, yes, Clarín.
It's amazing how people swallow that shit.

As a Venezuelan the 1st post is bizarro world lmao.

You guys are so lucky to have Macri (so far)

lol. what a idiotic post. Macri has destroyed the economy and created 1.4M new poors in less than a year. He only cares about the people who put him in charge: the banks, the multinationals and his rich friends.

Kirchner's model was based around consumption. Far away from what Hugo Chávez model was aimed to. Now the current government sees "consumption" as a problem, and middle class shouldn't be able to buy things like air conditioners, SmartTVs or going in vacations. What a great change!