

Big Mac Prices Just Went Up 26% in Argentina - mattobrien
http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2012/06/13/big_mac_prices_soar_26_in_argentina.html

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jstalin
Argentina is the very definition of economic schizophrenia. People are put in
jail for reporting the actual inflation rate (instead of the "official"
inflation rate). The Economist magazine recently published a story that they
are no longer going to lie to their readers and report the official rate and
instead will report unofficial, private estimates. Argentina's real inflation
rate has been running at about 25% per year.

~~~
pmtarantino
Argentina keeps the official rate down because pays interest to USA according
to it. If the official rate is low, Argentina pay less, which is great.

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dguaraglia
Exactly! This is why a lot of people, like say my father, who hate the
government policies otherwise kind of agrees with them on this: "hey, we got
fucked by the IMF 20 times already, let them get fucked for once!"

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pelle
I'm sorry but Argentina got f'ed by the IMF because the country keeps voting
in incompetent yet flamboyant idiots who buy votes with money they don't have.

~~~
dguaraglia
Not really, most of the governments were led by competent people.
Unfortunately, they also happened to be either extremely corrupt (Carlos
Menem) or blinded by their own ideologies (Carlos De La Rua). The current
government sits somewhere there in the middle.

Things have gotten better for most people in Argentina, but at the cost of
another of those 'boom for 10 years, then bust' cycles we are so used to. You
can't argue inflation is rampant, I still recall the first time I came back
from Brazil a pizza was about AR$10. Today the same pizza (maybe with a
fancier name) starts at AR$40.

But then, 'eating out' doesn't reflect the real inflation. In that period,
pizzas increased 400% in value, alfajores (a local sweet) had a similar
increase from (AR$1 to AR$5), while a coffee at any bar in Buenos Aires
increased around 1000% (from anywhere around AR$2 to a starting value of
AR$17, most commonly AR$20+). Nice wines on the supermarket only increased
about 200% in that period. Buy the same wine in a bar and you'd think you are
at some fancy spot in San Francisco, they are so expensive. So it's all over
the freaking shop (no pun intended).

~~~
pelle
Intelligence and competence are two very different things. You have to go back
probably 100 years to find a relatively competent government.

The current government is at least as incompetent from an economic point of
view as the policies of both Peron and the generals that came after him.
Cristina is only in power because her husband died. It is very rarely I have
seen anyone even in Latin America as incompetent as her.

While I'm not Argentinian, I truly love the country and it's people. It
saddens me no end to see it and to see very intelligent people talk conspiracy
theories and spew idiotic economic theories that the rest of the world got rid
of decades ago.

~~~
euccastro
"It saddens me no end to see it and to see very intelligent people talk
conspiracy theories and spew idiotic economic theories that the rest of the
world got rid of decades ago."

How's that working for the rest of the world?

If you have the time, some food for thought. This is a Greek documentary on
the Argentinian crisis and recovery:

1/7: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gys83fazwOo>

2/7: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JP1Sm4KijY0>

3/7: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LCBQM2EuEKg>

4/7: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n6mwXQG1MBg>

5/7: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UDgARm2owLs>

6/7: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AgqblekF3Qg>

7/7: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-__Msw4kUSc>

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heyrhett
I love that the Argentinian government was worrying about their (mostly)
tongue-in-cheek ranking in the Economist's big-mac index. It makes me feel
like they're run by the Bluths from Arrested Development or something.

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mayneack
I guess this will make the "big mac index" go up an insane amount this year
instead of "slowly" over several years.

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callmeed
It's a burger bubble. You don't want to be around when it pops.

~~~
molmalo
The biggest burger bubbles I've ever seen are in Mc Donnald's ads. But then...
you see their thin burger patty's (at least here) and that bubble plops. Lol!

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spiredigital
Wow. Did anyone else read this and think:

'I wonder why the 27" iMacs are more expensive in Argentina?"

Nope? No one? I guess if you can't spot the sucker....

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wslh
This is just because the index (big mac) was artificially low and McDonalds
needed a real upgrade

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pshc
I was just in Hong Kong and the Big Mac there is noticeably cheaper than every
other meal at McDonald's. I was wondering if it might be to manipulate the
index?

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planetguy
The Big Mac index as of January:

[http://www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail/2012/01/daily-c...](http://www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail/2012/01/daily-
chart-3)

Argentina was already close to the top, with a Big Mac going for $US4.94, not
entirely crazy by any means. (On the other hand, given that you can get a full
three-course steak dinner with wine in a nice restaurant for $US20 in
Argentina I wonder who is eating these Big Macs). A 25% increase will take it
up to something like $6.25, a little above Sweden.

The fact that the official exchange rate is 4.2 pesos to the dollar but
Argentinians are willing to give you at least five pesos to the dollar in
informal exchanges seems like a pretty bad sign.

The other interesting thing about that Big Mac index is that Argentina is one
of the world's largest beef producers. So are Uruguay, Brazil and Australia,
all clustered up there in overpriced burger land.

~~~
molmalo
> I wonder who is eating these Big Macs

Something you may not realize from there. Surprisingly, in Argentina, Mc
Donnalds is not targeted to the lower classes, - a cheap lunch in a fast food.
It's targeted to the middle and higher classes (mainly teenagers and young
office workers).

I've been in Spain, England, France, and a few other countries, and I noted
that their target there was certainly different. My explanation for this (I
belive), is that here, teenagers just LOVE Brands (to the point that I think
is crass).

Maybe an aftertaste of the nineties and the neoliberal movement.

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sardonicbryan
Anecdotally, in Taiwan the quality of McDonald's is significantly higher than
in the US. The quality of the meat and materials in particular.

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lipponlabang
Who in their right mind eats a Big Mac anyway? They're disgusting.

~~~
Codhisattva
I can't figure out how this story made it to HN.

