Salta (and Jujuy) notes
The food is excellent. Don’t worry about choosing the right restaurant, just try to eat the simple things. Corn products. Beans. Baked goods such as empanadas. Don’t waste your time on the steak. The food stalls in the Mercado Municipal are a good place to start, and many items there cost fifty cents to a dollar. The "sopa de mani" (peanut soup) is especially good, and almost identical to what you find in Bolivia.
The overall vibe in Salta reminds me of both northern Mexico and the older parts of the American Southwest. And the adjacent parts of Bolivia. It is hot, the cities are surrounded by beautiful scenery, and it still all feels rather wild. Salta is also much safer than Buenos Aires, and you don’t see many beggars here. In B.A. they are now asking for food rather than money.
There’s not much to do in Salta, as the central sights in town are the two mummified remains of young Incan girls in the archaeological museum. They are memorable, as it feels like they are staring right back at you.
Spending time here will cure you of utopianism, and also of pessimism. Whatever issues you might think are really important, most people here really don’t care about them or even know about them.
American brands at the retail level are not to be seen. Nor will you run across Chinese or Indian merchants. Perhaps a Syrian or Lebanese is to be found, but not in any great numbers.
Tyrone is accompanying me, and I asked him what he thinks. As you might expect, he had only stupid rudeness in response. Tyrone said that northern Argentina is the true essence of the Argentinean nation, and that everyone interested in Argentina should visit here. In fact, having visited North Macedonia, he wishes to rename the country South Bolivia — were they not once part of the same Viceroyalty? Is it not enough to share the same soup? Do they not have broadly the same accent, devoid of all that B.A. slurring? Was not the country born here in the north? That is where the decisive battle for national independence was fought and won. Do we not all agree with theories of deep roots? It is not just who moves to your nation, but it is about how and where your nation was founded. And for Argentina that is in the north, and with violence and corruption and economic decline. Tyrone even wishes to hand over the rest of Patagonia to the Chileans, so that Argentina may better recognize its true self.
In the twisted view of Tyrone, the creation of the modernist city of Brasilia was a big success. The real failure, hermetically hidden by some charming Parisian and Barcelona-style architecture, was the attempted modernist outpost of Buenos Aires, an immature and underdeveloped excrudescence from the real nation of chocro, horse saddles and the quebrada. It tricked a few Johnny-come-lately migrants during the early 20th century, and neglected to tell them they still would be ruled by the ideas and the norms of the north.
Imagine thinking that you could govern a nation with high modernism and Freudian psychoanalysis — what folly! And now, Tyrone tells us, we have the Milei revolution, attempting to replace one Viennese modernism — that of Freud — with the Viennese modernist revolution of Mises. Good luck with that one, Tyrone says. What kind of fool would think that the future of South America would be determined by a war across different Viennese modernisms? Those mummified corpses still will rule the day, whether or not the feds balance the budget in the short term. Desiccated ever-young girls are in perpetual deficit, no matter how the daily fiscal accounts may read.
I had to stop Tyrone right then and there, as he was explaining why the current hyperinflation probably was a good thing, as the only path to true dollarization and at least one symbolic unification with North America. Tyrone was shouting that such symbolic unification nonetheless was impossible, and thus the corpses had brought in Milei to restore fiscal sanity and prevent dollarization and thus protect the true Incan and Andean nation.
Such thoughts are not allowed on Marginal Revolution, and so I am now trying to persuade Tyrone to visit Iguassu, in the hope that I can induce him to take a quick swim in those falls…
I hope the rest of you will visit northern Argentina nonetheless, and put all that nonsense aside. The empanadas await you.
Comments
Here's one possible path for long-term optimism for Argentina and Chile:
They're on the Western side of South America, similar longitude to the Eastern US. They're, IIUC, pretty well educated and sophisticated by Latin American standards. In the modern Zoom/Microsoft Teams era, could not both countries make good outsourcing destinations for U.S. services/tasks?
Yes, they speak Spanish, but I presume the young are taught English from an early age, and the bright ones presumably learn it well. (Spanish->English presumably much easier than Hindi->English).
Furthermore, I would presume that more US expats would be willing to live in the Southern cone, versus say, India, thus helping smooth over issues.
If you had a dollar-ized Argentina, and US companies could pay in dollars (rather than being forced to buy pesos at overpriced government rates rather than market rates), then a good Argentine might be, what, half or less of a good US worker? Even if only the top 10-20% are suitable for this, secondary effects would benefit many others.
Maybe Tyler/Tyrone/others can point out where I'm wrong...
Time zones are not unimportant. When I was a kid, many observers assumed Hawaii would someday become a home to upscale employers the ways Northern California is because Hawaii is even more of a natural paradise.
But that didn't happen, in part because of three hour time zone difference between California and Hawaii. If you want to be at your desk 30 minutes before the New York Stock Exchange opens at 9:30 AM EST, that's 6:00 AM in San Francisco, which is challenging but not crazy.
But that's 3 AM in Honolulu. So if you want to get 8 hours sleep per night and get up 1 hour before you start work, that's to bed at 6pm, which is bizarre. Your wife would divorce you if you went to bed at 6pm. What's the point of making a lot of money if you can only go to restaurants during the Senior Discount Hour?
Buenos Aires, in contrast, is 2 hours of earlier than NYC, 3 hours later than London. So Buenos Aires isn't a bad compromise between the two.
On the other hand, the London stock exchange's hours are 8am to 4:30pm, which means if you want to come to work a half hour before London opens, that you'd want to be at your desk at 4:30 am, while the NYSE closes at 6:00 pm. That's a long day.
It's a long day, but where else in the world would a London open -> NY close even be possible? It actually makes a lot of sense for somebody under, oh, say, 30 and very ambitious.
>What's the point of making a lot of money if you can only go to restaurants during the Senior Discount Hour?
If you make enough money, your wife won't divorce you, you divorce your wife and get the newer model and the restaurants will be open any time you want;)
And to be clear, longitude similar to US makes collaboration with Americans easier.
Also, I was an expat kid in Brazil long ago, and even then, pre-internet, it was a reasonably pleasant experience (though we kids complained about the lack of the latest hot American consumer goods.)
In theory, you could also do this sort of thing in Colombia, and maybe some folks will. Venezuela's a mess, so no. Ambitious Mexicans with good English probably mostly migrate. Peru/Bolivia/Ecuador? Seems less likely...
That's quite right. In fact, there is quite a lot of US emigration to Argentina; they get paid remotely in USD but enjoy the cheap environment plus same tine zone.
For Argentinians it's harder. The only ones who speak passable English (and have well developed cognitive skills) are those privileged enough to have been to private school, as public schools are terrible all across Latin America. And they're in a sort of a middle income trap. The real exchange rate is often quite overvalued due to a comparative advantage in agricultural and mineral resources exports, so it's too expensive for light manufacturing and other export oriented industries to settle there already. That's even more true for Salta, which is truly landlocked now. Public infrastructure, despite all the smoke and mirrors about HSR, was underfunded and atrophied big time under the Kirchners and before them. In the Quebrada you still see the wreck of the old railway which worked for a century until the Chicago Boys came. The reason Tyler sees very little market integration in Salta is that it is extremely hard to bring stuff from there to the world markets. And not just because of an overvalued exchange rate.
I regularly have Zoom work sessions with a highly-skilled tech specialist in Buenos Aires who works for a U.S. company. I've always assumed he is paid in USD, though I did also recently read that such workers are only legally allowed to receive a max of 50% of their salary that way. The rest must be converted to pesos.
Seems like dollarization doesn't add much in this scenario to companies just being able to pay in pesos at the market rate.
Shared time zones would mean you could work remotely together, but also there is no advantage of some employees being able to work while others are sleeping.
Great post.
Tyrone's view reminds me of Borges, so here's a literary question: when Borges writes about the Real Argentina, is he talking about North or South of Buenos Aires? I recall a Borges story called "The South," so I assumed he meant south of B.A., but your post makes me think I got it backward.
Paul Theroux found Argentina rather depressing when he rode the train from Boston to Buenos Aires for his follow-up travel book to his bestseller the Great Asian Railway Bazaar. He pointed out that James Joyce had treated Argentina as the promised land in his 1904 short story "Eveline" about an Irish lass considering improving her state by migrating to Argentina.
"She was about to explore another life with Frank. Frank was very kind, manly, open-hearted. She was to go away with him by the night-boat to be his wife and to live with him in Buenos Ayres where he had a home waiting for her."
Eveline is always worth a re-read. A lot of economics in it too, and the "derevaun seraun" mystery. The phrase "argentine in casement" occurs in Finnegan's wake, and Roger Casement spent some time there at the time that Joyce was writing.
http://www.online-literature.com/james_joyce/959/
Interesting point. My view is that Borges hardly cared about anything outside Buenos Aires and its suburbs. The South was alway either the southern part of Buenos Aires and the area south of Buenos Aires, where he imagined that the city limited with a wilder, mythical and more barbaric universe.
The South begins when crossing Rivadavia Avenue.
Africa begins at the Pyrenees, Asia begins at the Elbe.
You've made a mis-steak. https://idlewords.com/2006/04/argentina_on_two_steaks_a_day.htm
On the food notes - does Argentina do churrasco, as Brazil does?
And has Argentine (or Chilean, or Bolivian) food penetrated North America, outside perhaps of the standard cosmopolitan areas of Washington, NYC, and maybe Miami? Peruvian food has caught on, to some extent, up here, and you can find Brazilian restaurants, too. Don't remember seeing Argentine, though...
They do. It's called Asado.
Argentine is few and far in between. The country is still so gorgeous and generally you can live in dignity under no dictatorship. Life is still reasonably good, so people have no need to emigrate in spite of widespread poverty.
That is part for sure. But it's also still quite difficult for Argentinians to be able to get visa's and citizenship elsewhere. A lot are lucky enough to have recent enough Italian ancestors to qualify for Italian citizenship (and passports) that way. But even still I have several Argentinian friends that talk about how hard and long it takes to get visas anywhere because they can't travel with their passport like we are used to in the United States.
They get all the prejudice of LATAM immigrants when applying with none of the refugee status they can point to.
"A lot are lucky enough to have recent enough Italian ancestors to qualify for Italian citizenship"
I wonder if we're going to see low-birthrate countries re-open citizenship eligibility to more distant ancestors? It seems like it might be a good way for EU countries to poach some Americans.
Argentinian food is not common in Los Angeles and Portland, but both cities have a number of Argentinian places. It's less common than Peruvian or Brazilian food, but they're not super common either. I.e. to find one, you most likely will have to look one up, rather than being able to randomly come across one.
Argentine good is pretty boring to the North American palate. North Americans have their own traditions of steak, pizza, pasta, and sausages and the Argentine versions, while quite pleasant, aren't really obvious improvements. Occasionally, one can get an empanada even in small cities but it really lacks the exotic frisson of Peruvian or other tropical foods.
I love visiting Argentina but I actually tend to agree. Staying there long term you actually get a little bored of the cuisine as an American. They don't have as much variety as we are used to.
I will die on the hill though that the quality floor on meat based dishes (steak, sausage, burgers) is much higher. It's hard to find bad burgers, even their McDonalds is miles ahead of US versions. Their desserts are also great, I love alfajores.
Naturally, we hear jibes from utilitarian economists at attempts to elucidate the inner life, and nothing regarding the apocalyptic Catholic military which did so much to keep Argentina benighted.
The Iguazu falls are epic. The adjacent town is not. Unless you're looking to traffic illicit goods or get kidnapped.
There's an exceptional old estate established by a timber family about an hour South along the Paraguay border (on the Rio Parana) though. This estate has the fortune (or the curse, for Tyrone) of greatly reducing the chance of kidnapping and infinitely increasing the chance of day-long jungle adventure hike.
Argentinian food is one of the true wonders of the world.
And Buenos Aires is already quite safe...
Yeah basically stay out of any of the "suburbs" of the conurbano (the areas surrounding BA) that aren't in the north, and don't go south of Constitucion and LA Boca at night. That leaves most of the city perfectly fine and actually quite awesome.
There's not really any reason to visit the unsafe areas anyways other than to see the colorful neighborhood in La Boca or a Boca Jr.s match but thats fine during the day. Just like there isn't a reason to be wandering through Skid Row you'll mostly avoid these areas by nature of it not being where you'd naturally go anyways.
Does Argentina push for autarky, in the way Brazil once did (still does?)
An inability to easily and cheaply import new technology and other goods from around the world would be a major stumbling block, economically.
Be sure to get a picture of yourself standing next to the Tropico de Capricornio road sign. And snap a pic along the highway to Cafayate, muy bonita!
Avoiding the steak is a mistake. https://idlewords.com/2006/04/argentina_on_two_steaks_a_day.htm
Your thesis, of the unchanging essence of a society based upon its original founding, has some merit. This is why you support immigration and woke so heavily. But have you ever done the work to figure out at what point the scales tip? If a new more forceful group commandeers control of a nation, when does it stop being the old, and start being the new? China had no word for privacy, prior to when the wealthy decided to send their children over to the United States and become educated in the ways of the barbarians. Now, the concept of privacy exists in the "educated" Chinese mind. The powers that be in the west, believe they can change the east. The powers that be in the east, believe the west can change them beyond recognition, which has caused them to create a great firewall, and rampant misinformation. Tyrone isn't Tyrone enough to break with Tyler's deep assumptions about things?
Interesting timing to be in Argentina, perhaps a little secret economic advisor trip? Pure, pot-stirring speculation but I want to believe
Did dollarization fail in Zimbabwe because the underlying problem is simply a chronic shortage of US Dollars? And could the Fed fix the universal dollar shortage with a dollar-denominated worldwide basic income?
Land-based wealth. Feudal Europe. The American South. South America. Australia. Even the American West today (American billionaires investing in millions of acres of land in Montana, Idaho, Wyoming, etc.). The Argentinians who came to Florida about ten years ago have invested in hundreds of thousands of acres of Florida land. How productive can land be? We know the story of Thomas Jefferson: land poor (i.e., he had lots of land and no money to pay his bills). Of course, feudalism and land-based wealth are a match made in Hell (slavery by another name). On a lesser note, by far the single largest asset of a typical American today is the house. How productive is a house? Down here local governments depend on land-based taxes (the ad valorem tax) to pay the bills, burdening owners of houses forever; indeed, productive land (i.e., agricultural land) is taxed at a much lower rate than houses, apportioning a greater share of the tax burden on owners of, that's right, houses. The first gilded age barons invested much of their wealth in land in the South, including the DuPonts, who still own vast stretches of pine forests. The total value of Florida residential real estate today is about $3.7 trillion, second only to California's $9.5 trillion. And while California also has tech, Florida has Disney World, golf courses, and Home Shopping Network. I suppose golf courses are productive in their way. Fore!
Forty years ago investors in Tampa's nascent burbs built large self-storage facilities to generate a return until population growth could support a mall, where the really big profits waited. As for my Argentinian friends who have invested billions in Florida land, they don't build self-storage facilities but recruit cows (technically the owners of the cows) to put on the land in order to receive agricultural classification and a much lower tax rate. Consider native Americans: if they had the foresight to invest in self-storage facilities, today they wouldn't have to partner with sketchy people to operate gambling casinos for them. The misguided native Americans had no concept of ownership of land.
I don't get it. If you don't have the population to support a mall, then who's storing stuff in those self-storage facilities?
I didn't get it either. But the explanation given me at the time was to have something that might generate revenues with little investment until the expected growth in population would support a mall. In some cases the growth did support a mall that was eventually built. Of course, malls! Want to buy one? My point, besides the lunacy, is that land-based wealth ain't very productive. How productive is a self-storage facility? Or a house? I represented the largest industrial developer in the area at the time, and we sought the help of the county in recruiting industry to the area (with IDBs among other incentives). Nope, not interested in dirty industry, what the county wanted were back room operations for "clean" jobs, housing developers for the employees of the back room operations, and malls for a place for them to throw away their money. The county opened the public coffers to back rooms operations and helped build office parks in the burbs. The back room operations are all gone now (to India!). My problem is that I have practiced law in the area for over 45 years and I've had a front row seat to observe the nonsense. Fortunately, the area has been blessed with a growing population. Unfortunately, the area has been cursed with a growing population.
Who is Tyrone? Posts lately are turning into pure arrogance and slightly unhinged imo
Tyrone is Tyler‘s African-American alter ego ventriloquist puppet. Like GOB‘s Franklin on „Arrested Development"
Perhaps he should retire it for Tyrion Cowen, the equally bad tempered dwarf alter-ego?
He explains it in the daksya's link further down. It's what his father wanted to name him. No more than that is implied.
https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2006/03/opposite_day.html
Tyrone is an Irish name
See:
https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2006/03/opposite_day.html
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