Life in Argentina, 9 years after the 2001 Collapse

The whole blog is very interesting, there's lots of great insight in there... Argentina was murdered by the IMF... and it was a very rich country, much like most of the west today... and overnight it went kaput due to a currency collapse...

Life in Argentina, 9 years after the 2001 Collapse.

This week has been interesting and as I now sit here to write and put things together, it hits me how surreal it all is. You get used to all this, its parts of your daily routine to see this things, avoid roadblocks, avoid the conflict and places where protests and looting are taking place. It does wear you out though, imagine wanting to go home after a hard day’s work only to find this in your train station, closed until further notice.

Looting and Rioting

This happened in Constitucion train station yesterday after the service was canceled because of another group of protesters blocking the railroad, and therefore forcing the service to be canceled. I used to take this train to work and this happened more often than you’d think. Man, I don’t miss that train.

Squatters

We’ve also been experiencing a squatters boom. All over the country squatters are taking over land for themselves, hurrying in building brick and mortar structures to consolidate their position. The news only reported the most notorious ones that took place in the capital district, but this situation is wide spread and much worse in the suburbs and country.
How does it look when they take over land and start dividing the land among them? It looks like this.

No, not pretty at all. Imagine waking up one day and seeing this in the public park in front of your house. Those orange brick buildings that can be seen in the background, some 3 levels high, they build those in a matter of HOURS. In no time you have a favela or shanty town built in your neighborhood. The price of your nice house plumbs and the neighborhood itself become no man’s land a few days later.

What happens when neighbors are fed up with squatters and take matters into their own hands because the liberal government simply wont stop them from squatting in public and private property? It looks like this:

Anyway, go read the entire article, this is what is happening in Argentina, and you can bet it'll be the same in the US in a decade... but probably more violent due to more gun and the more violent American culture.

Another very interesting thing about Argentina collapse :

Lessons from Argentina's economic collapse PDF

It doesn't matter where you live.
If your currency dives and your economy crashes your life can be just like this, or worse.
This is what the US will look like if go further into debt and sell our nation out to foreign banks.
The wonders of disaster capitalism.
Truly sad and depressing.

S and F sir!

It looks like the future is not so bright for us if we slip like this.

The people seem to be clean cut and well dressed even though they are in a tragic situation. Many of them gathered together in areas like this you would expect them to be much more unkept.

Where do they get the food you see boiling in the big pots if there is no money or jobs? Many of them seem a bit on the chubby side too so is that from the types of foods they have available? I wonder if they are being given gmo which I think contributes to obesity.

I dont know, this thread amazes me and I will think about it for a long time to come. So many questions like sanitation, hygiene, safety of women at night, childrens rights.

No matter how dire a situation, there will always be love, children, families living beside the best and the worst.

At least Argentina did not become as bad as many African Nations so what is the lesson to be learned?

Like I said so many questions, thankyou for bringing this to my attention.

I've read Farfal's book about the initial stages of the Argentinian collapse. Fascinating, if scary, reading. Especially when you realize where Argentina was economically prior to the collapse. Highly recommend the book.

I have read all of these sort of horror stories before, so when I recently had some time to spend with an Argentine national, I asked him quite a few questions. Long story short, the stories are highly sensationalized and do not represent what is going on there. Even at the time of the collapse things were not so bad. This guy I spoke to said he lost a lot of money, but was never in any danger.

That PDF makes it sound like things were really, really terrible. I knew things were tough in Argentina after their money collapsed, but I didn't think it was that bad...

reply to post by Asktheanimals


Libyan rebels or terrorists will be fooled by the falling American dollar.

If Argentine is like this i can only imagine what Brazil is like, interesting thread op.

For me, the blog raised some interesting points, as I know several Americans who have SHTF plans to immigrate to South America somewhere. Some of them have already bought property and some of them are looking for it. I don't think most of them have the kind of money to live in a gated community. If I wasn't sure it was a good idea before, now it is looking like a really horrible idea. I had no idea that food and electricity are actually more expensive there than here.