comment: >
  
  Operation Paperclip
context: Why is it this so common in Argentina and not in neighboring countries? >
  
  Thanks for posting it. Very interesting and sad at the same time. It somehow reminds me to Greece’s woes 10 years ago (debt they could not repay etc). 
  When you see the debt most countries have (including the US and all European counties), it’s just surprising this does not happen more often. The US debt has ballooning since ever and it is clear it will never be repaid.
  The whole peso being pegged to the USD sounds like a terrible idea - but then you see this in many (smaller countries) today, like Hong Kong. >
  
  
  When you see the debt most countries have (including the US and all European counties), it’s just surprising this does not happen more often. 
  
  The reason for this is really that it's a lot more complicated than just how much debt a country has. Other factors like interest rates play a huge role. What's arguably a better metric for how a country is doing debt-wise is how much they pay in interest rates, rather than how much gross debt they hold. The US, for instance, holds a very large amount of debt, but that debt is made up of loans made out at extremely low interest rates, which means the actual burden of those debts on the economy is comparatively low. >
  
  Another thing that’s important to point out is that the US dollar is the global reserve currency. There’s an insatiable hunger for dollars around the globe. >
  
  International buisness settlements are done in dollars. If China wasn’t to soybeans  from Brazil they pay in dollars >
  
  Argentina never stopped being Argentina. Always currency collapse. >
  
  Can't think of something more Argentinian than inflation >
  
  Argentina boutta become a bouncy castle with all this inflation >
  
  At 100%, Messi will level up. >
  
  I was there when a buddy of mine got me the Messi dollar when the officially rate was like 6-1. Lived like a king for 2 weeks >
  
  “There are four kinds of countries: Developed countries, underdeveloped countries, Japan, and Argentina.” -Economist Simon Kuznets >
  
  Why is Japan a standout? Is it a quote from the 80s? >
  
  Huge amount of debt, low growth, low inflation. Yet things seem to work out. >
  
  Because that debt is owned to their own citizens and not foreign countries. This is very common in places where there are lot of natural disasters and you need to rebuild. >
  
  In 1992 we made a full Spanish-version monopoly game with real cash. It was worthless. I remember we ran it through the washing machine, then ironed out the bills. We still have that board "game."
  We left Argentina in 1994, plenty of extended family left behind. All these years later, same old shit. My father (visiting family)  just got a haircut down there for like $1.75ish US. People are desperate. Failed state, no jobs, no money, barely enough food. >
  
  PS. It wasn't long after our custom game was made that Argentina literally just cancelled the currency, and started a new one. If you hadn't traded in your "Australes" for the new "Pesos," they were literally garbage. Of course, trading them in was pennies on the thousands, or worse. Hence our new game was born. >
  
  Put Messi on a new large domination bill and watch the Argentinian Peso demand go up. >
  
  Yeah, it’s Argentina, that happens a lot there. >
  
  I don’t even know how to comprehend this. However, eggs are up 200%….so there’s that. >
  
  If the avian flu strain going around hit Argentina too, imagine the egg prices there! >
  
  Argentina has had massive inflation for decades 
  I'm no expert at all... but it's clear that the economic direction they've taken is not good . Can't they change it completely? >
  
  It's a democratic country, so it's apparently a direction that a majority of Argentinians are somehow happy with.
  That being said, young Argentinians are leaving the country in droves.
  It's particularly sad because Argentina was one of the richest countries in the world approximately 90 years ago. It also has an incredibly rich geography. >
  
  
  It's a democratic country, so it's apparently a direction that a majority of Argentinians think that it isn't the worst.
  
  Looking at the whole landscape of democracy across different countries, I think it is better to say it like this.
  Democracy isn't about choosing the best, it's about choosing the least worst. >
  
  Fair and open Democracy is a gigantic failsafe to remove bad leadership and smoothly transfer power to new leadership without the country collapsing into a civil war. An extremely useful tool if a country ends up in a situation with an idiot such as Putin or Trump in charge.
  As for the competence of the alternative candidates, a lot of that has to do with cultural resentment and tribalism allowing incompetent candidates to get by, which at its core is probably best addressed with the education system for the general public. >
  
  Didn't matter, they won the World Cup >
  
  Tom Brady prefers deflated balls, while Messi prefers his inflated. >
  
  Turkey be like: hold my beer >
  
  Time to invade the Falklands again. >
  
  Didn’t work out so well last time. >
  
  And yet they have some superiority complex compared to other Latin American nations that I will never understand. I can’t think of a time their government wasn’t in shambles or what the hell is there to do there other than look at a trophy or go out to the jungle for the national parks. >
  
  Get up, honey! A new financial crisis has hit Argentina! >
  
  But sure, let's blame Biden  /s >
  
  "This is Biden's fault" - some dumb American. >
  
  I'm always worried about their peso getting stronger and the euro getting weaker because that could mean my beloved Yerba Mate Rosamonte tea becoming more expensive, and I can't possibly have that. First world problems, I know. >
  
  Thanks Biden. /s >
  
  ✌🏿✌🏿✌🏿 >
  
  Steam Games are so expensive over there. >
  
  They should impeach Biden. Isn't that supposed to fix inflation?
  Oddly enough, America has among the lowest inflation rates in the world at the moment. >
  
  Why are Argentine companies so greedy, goddammit? >
  
  Messi will fix it. >
  
  Standard Argentine financial L >
  
  Makes me wonder how the people recover from all this. >
  
  I’d pack up and leave! That’s just completely insane. >
  
  Isn't this what we call hyperinflation? >
  
  Don't brag too hard. I'm pretty sure our own numbers are fucking fake, and the reality is way higher than we are led to believe. >
  
  I love buying me some Xbox games through Argentina region, nice.
  That's a joke, obviously. I hope they manage! >
  
  “There are four kinds of countries: Developed countries, underdeveloped countries, Japan, and Argentina.” -Economist Simon Kuznets >
  
  Why is Japan a standout? Is it a quote from the 80s? >
  
  Huge amount of debt, low growth, low inflation. Yet things seem to work out. >
  
  Because that debt is owned to their own citizens and not foreign countries. This is very common in places where there are lot of natural disasters and you need to rebuild. >
  
  It's not much about who's holding the debt (about 20% of US debt is foreign held, compared to 15% of Japan's debt) but on what currency is it issued. Japan, like the US, has almost all of its debt issued on its own currency. That's not common, and that's why they can get away with it. >
  
  This is the MMT view right? There are other, more well established schools of thought if I understand correctly. >
  
  No, not at all. MMT views are completely trash. This view just takes US debt and currency realities for what they're worth. It's not an advocacy for infinite debt (that's not going to work), but it does explain why big deficits in the US in recent history are not that important. >
  
  I think you’re mischaracterizing what MMT implies. The general idea is that with a sovereign currency, a country can spend (with debt) up to what its labor force at full employment & resources allow for. As the country approaches that limit, there is inflationary pressure. The opposite mechanism here to taking out debt being taxation, which reduces the money supply and relieves inflationary pressure. So in other words, MMT does not claim that you can have “infinite debt”. 
  Although, I’m an engineer not an economist, so take this with a grain of salt lol >
  
  The issue with MMT is that the politicians are then in charge of our money supply, which they can use to buy votes with. 
  So of course they're going to continue to spend if it gets them reelected and never raise taxes. So you only get half of the equation. >
  
  Why is it this so common in Argentina and not in neighboring countries? >
  
  The whole 51% inflation 12 months ago is really bad. Even when the economy was “OK” everywhere else, inflation was out of whack. It’s poor foundation for whatever the next crisis might be (thanks for that Putin…). >
  
  Ahh yeah, Putin is at fault and not Jerome Powell who printed trillions of $ out of thin air. >
  
  Jerome Powell thanks Putin every day for keeping him off the spotlight!
  Having said that, I would say JPow’s biggest mistake was sticking to the whole “inflation  is temporary” theme until too late. I don’t think he had much of a choice flooding the markets with cash during COVID, but he then refused to acknowledge the creeping inflation. >
  
  Trump pressured him to keep low rates when the fed should have been raising them. Helped abit. >
  
  Argentina never stopped being Argentina. Always currency collapse. >
  
  Can't think of something more Argentinian than inflation >
  
  Eating steak while an old Argentinian man talks about how great Argentina is despite not having been back in decades? >
  
  I see you've sat at my family dinner table >
  
  At 100%, Messi will level up. >
  
  I was there when a buddy of mine got me the Messi dollar when the officially rate was like 6-1. Lived like a king for 2 weeks >
  
  Yeah, it’s Argentina, that happens a lot there. >
  
  Their voters are completely stupid and choose this over and over again >
  
  Argentina has had massive inflation for decades 
  I'm no expert at all... but it's clear that the economic direction they've taken is not good . Can't they change it completely? >
  
  Too much goverment employees + third world country economy = inflation. To finance a big goverment Argentina has to print money which they don't have. Inflation is a taxation of the poor, since they're the last ones to spend the money on goods and by that time the prices have already increased. To fix the problem, they have to decrease the goverment size and freeze the money in the banks. This will crash the consumer economy and stabilize the currency while bringing massive unimployment. Brazil did exacly that in the 90s and since then inflation has never skyrocketed again. >
  
  Argentines don’t keep their money in banks, they hoard it physically. >
  
  
  they hoard it physically.
  
  I go even further and say: they hoard DOLLARS, not their currency.
  Right now, Argentinean economy is a de facto dollarized nation. Anything that cost more than grocery in Argentina, the purchase is done in dollars: cars, properties, large home appliances, investments... everything. And all physically, pure craziness.
  Argentina is a very hard conundrum to solve: 40% of their people are right now living in poverty. Still, their very large public sector and their lobby groups sabotage any attempt to really solve their issues (excessively large public sector + public retirement system full of privileges), and their own population has a very wrong idea of what a government should do (they believe that their government must directly provide jobs and sustain them instead to create conditions for people to create their own opportunities). This creates an environment that populists of all kinds since Perón are preying into for a century.
  Argentina is not a economical problem, is a political-social problem. No economic theory can fix that. >
  
  There's no easy solution for Argentina. Even if they did the necessary reforms, their country would still suffer a great recession. I would just recommend to anyone interested in this topic to search for "Plano Real" which was the transition from a very poor brazilian currency to a dollar equivalent one. >
  
  Put Messi on a new large domination bill and watch the Argentinian Peso demand go up. >
  
  Call it the Argentinian Pessi >
  
  Portugal should also put Penaldo face in their own currency. >
  
  Didn't matter, they won the World Cup >
  
  Tom Brady prefers deflated balls, while Messi prefers his inflated. >
  
  Turkey be like: hold my beer >
  
  More like “hold my rakı” >
  
  Sorry raki is too expensive now, we will stick to beer >
  
  I don’t even know how to comprehend this. However, eggs are up 200%….so there’s that. >
  
  If the avian flu strain going around hit Argentina too, imagine the egg prices there! >
  
  it’s ok, they brought the world cup home. that’s all it matters to them >
  
  In 1992 we made a full Spanish-version monopoly game with real cash. It was worthless. I remember we ran it through the washing machine, then ironed out the bills. We still have that board "game."
  We left Argentina in 1994, plenty of extended family left behind. All these years later, same old shit. My father (visiting family)  just got a haircut down there for like $1.75ish US. People are desperate. Failed state, no jobs, no money, barely enough food. >
  
  PS. It wasn't long after our custom game was made that Argentina literally just cancelled the currency, and started a new one. If you hadn't traded in your "Australes" for the new "Pesos," they were literally garbage. Of course, trading them in was pennies on the thousands, or worse. Hence our new game was born. >
  
  Time to invade the Falklands again. >
  
  Didn’t work out so well last time. >
  
  The difference is that the UK might not be willing participate in/be able to afford a military operation if Argentina invades because of both brexit and because they've sent a decent ammount of military assets to Ukraine. >
  
  Lmao, it's 6.30am and hopefully this is the dumbest thing I'll read today >
  
  Get up, honey! A new financial crisis has hit Argentina! >
  
  "This is Biden's fault" - some dumb American. >
  
  -Many dumb Americans. >
  
  Isn't this what we call hyperinflation? >
  
  Who cares they won the World Cup! That makes everything ok right? Plus lots of free Budweiser ! >
  
  That's some USSR style inflation right there. After the fall i mean. >
  
  Courage! Only 5% more! >
  
  I don't know how I would cope if my grocery bill suddenly doubled >
  
  And yet they have some superiority complex compared to other Latin American nations that I will never understand. I can’t think of a time their government wasn’t in shambles or what the hell is there to do there other than look at a trophy or go out to the jungle for the national parks. >
  
  superiority complex? wtf? we are one of the most open countrys in the world >
  
  Is that why all the Nazis fled there after WWII? >
  
  No, those went to the US