Argentina
phenomena/ Carlos Pueblo
A news on
today’s newspaper says, Argentina new president, Malicio. Macris
begins his
political reformation by reversing his predecessor , Cristina Kirshner’s
policy such
as no tax on export, decrease income tax, replace central bank chair,
replace two
supreme court judges, He doesn’t believe that Argentina has time
to wait. He
also abolishes the nation’s two exchange rates, one official bank rate
and one
black market rate. Let the nation deal with actual market rate of the
national
currency peso. I am very impressed with Argentina after two weeks
staying in
the capital city, Buenos Aires. I call it the Argentina Phenomena, what
phenomena am
I talking about? The national territory is so huge, 80 times larger
than Taiwan,
10 times bigger than Texas and yet only 41 million population.
Farming land
is so rich and produce is so huge, yet the nation is struggling, even
though Argentina
is still a bright hope among the South American nations and a
hope for
foreign immigrants.
Currency
exchange rate will be following the market rate to reflect the real
situation of
Argentina peso. Throughout the years, Argentina owes a lot of
foreign debt
and the nation has a hard time to repay it; therefore, I can see
why the new
policy to waive tax on export to gain much needed U.S. dollars.
Argentina
still posts U.S. dollars control and the exporter is required to change
his foreign
payment to peso and Argentina central bank will hold the foreign
currency.
This is a common practice for the developing nations such as China
and Taiwan
before 1985. After the abolishment of two exchange rate, the
peso
formerly de-valued, the government must face the inflation at the present.
Within the
city limit of Buenos Aires or a little bit of nearby metropolitan area,
you can
enjoy very good mass transit systems, subway, bus and a short distance
of light
rail. Outside of the city, you can only rely on buses and I have no experience
of freeway
systems if they are available. I could not find a reasonable transportation
to visit
three places, Iquazu Fall, Mendoza Vineyard, and Formosa Province due to
high cost of
airfare and bus tickets.
After the
trip, I pay more attention to the domestic cities of the U.S. I really need to
visit at
least 50 of U.S. cities in order to feel the progress of modern architecture in
compare with
a city like Buenos Aires of the past glory.
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