From: Carlos Gonzalia (gonzalia@md.chalmers.se)
Date: Fri Mar 02 2001 - 01:16:01 MST
>From: Amara Graps <amara@amara.com>
>Subject: Argentina economy (was PSYCH: Women and Math)
>
>From: Carlos Gonzalia <gonzalia@md.chalmers.se>
>>Same here, particularly considering I'm going back to my country after
>>graduation, and try my humblest best to keep the ship from sinking.
>
>Please do! (I like your country's writers. :-) )
Ohhh we all do. ;-) The cultural mix has been very rich there on the past 30
years or so, hence the amazing literary production coming from our writers.
>I was under the impression that life was improving in Argentina, but
>perhaps I was wrong. The last few years have been difficult there.
The best description would be that the rate of un-improving has been
reduced.
For the big part of the population, life has got way worse, and at a steady
pace, for the past 10 years or so. As I said, this worsening has been slowed
down lately, but calling this "improvement" is something only our shameless
politicians dare to do, hehe...
>(I suppose the following is reasonably accurate (?). )
[snipped out]
Very much so. Please note the big GDP dropping mentioned in the last part.
Calling the situation of the provinces "precarious" is a gross
understatement,
though. Many provinces (they are legally like states in the US) are simply
put
chronic disaster zones, economical and cultural stagnation being rampant. As
for
the labor code reform (more properly should be called dragging the code to
the
street and shooting it), this has been pretty much done by now. The results
are
quite bad for the typical worker, and its impact on unemployment has been
almost
nil. The stand-by facility of the IMF, which has been expanded greatly, is
basically the only thing holding the pieces together and avoiding social
collapse and worse violence than the already harsh one we have. As is usual
with
the IMF, the preconditions imposed on the government's administration have
included all kinds of nasties, one of them is killing off "unnecessary"
funding
for education and health, making the whole prospects of chronical stagnation
only more probable. Except for the agro-exporting sector (and even there,
only
to some extent), our industrial base has shrinked hugely, the main culprit
being
Menem's administration and its notorious corruption/incompetence. These guys
basically sold everything in sight, cheap, to unscrupulous foreign capitals
mainly interested in scraping off all physical stock and running away. The
ones
who did stay have only bothered to invest enough to keep their companies
working, and then abusing customers with all kinds of monopolistic tactics
plus
increasing their prices as the only resource for every thing not working
well.
Since I come from the academic sector, that is the part I'm most familiar
with.
As the message is a bit OT as it is, I'm not sure if embarking in a lengthy
description of the ruinous state of higher education and research in
Argentina.
Are you people interested in reading about it?
Carlos Gonzalia
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