As much as I dislike big government and things that get in the way of entrepreneurship, sometimes it’s easy to forget that being in the United States isn’t as bad as being many other places in the world. The same is true for other westernized countries. In contrast, I personally have family from Argentina and I hear first-hand experience from them on what is going on in that country. It has me subconsciously saying, “I’m so glad I don’t have to deal with that…yet.“
The things that those citizens have gone through and had to deal with are horrid. The act of hating a government has been taken to another level in Argentina. When people get so opposed to the government, the only option for the government to function is to use force and fear on its people to control them because at this point, there is no reasoning. Progressive agendas and out of control spending are what fuel chaos in a country. It’s a slow degradation of society that eventually leads to overwhelming debt and currency disasters.
I personally remember going to Argentina in 2001 and exchanging my dollars for pesos to be able to have some spending money and the conversion was 3 pesos for 1 dollar. Shortly after this it increased to 4 for 1 dollar. Mind you that’s a 33% loss in purchasing power against real things in Argentina. Today, the Argentine Peso has an 8 to 1 conversion, and that’s against the often bashed US dollar. Most of that loss in purchasing power has happened in the last two years as they’ve gone through yet another round of hyperinflation.
That’s a Disastrous Loss!
Why don’t people take their money out of the banks and convert to something else?
They can’t… The government has put controls throughout the country and made it illegal to convert you money and take it out of the country. The Argentine government is infamous for seizing bank accounts devaluing the currency and giving its citizens back their funds at fractional valuations.
So this means that the people are essentially stuck in this paradigm and there is a tremendous amount of black market transactions taking place by people who just want to have some wealth; just to be able to keep what they’ve worked for…
Because of corruption, there is a massive amount of crime; people are doing what needs to be done just for them to survive and feed their families. Bitcoin has been a booming commodity in Argentina because of its anonymity aspect and ability to transfer instantaneously anywhere around the world that has an internet connection.
Wealth preservation is a way of life for people with money in Argentina. Purchasing real estate, farmland, precious metals and the like is a way of life. This is to not to make money, but primarily to tread water in their tsunami of a crashing economy. What Argentinians are going through is something that western societies have yet to fully experience in this generation.
Does this sound familiar? Shadow stats to the extreme!
Argentina is much further down the rabbit hole than America is. I’m thankful for the sake of my standard of living that we are not as deep and controlled by our government as this country is… However, I do not believe that the actions that are taking place will be isolated to Argentina and countries like it. America hasn’t been protected so far because we have a ‘different breed’ of humans that are getting elected to run our country. Human nature of those in power will react and respond the same according to what is put forward into motion; I just hope that human nature can also take us out of the problem quickly after it happens.
The inevitable moral of the story is that things are somewhat stable now and freedom in America is at a high when compared to where I see it going in the future. We are on a path to destruction and government clampdowns… As our fiscal situation continues to spiral out of control, so will the actions that will need to be taken for the government to function.
Kenneth Ameduri
Chief Editor of CrushTheStreet.com