Register a SA Forums Account here!
JOINING THE SA FORUMS WILL REMOVE THIS BIG AD, THE ANNOYING UNDERLINED ADS, AND STUPID INTERSTITIAL ADS!!!

You can: log in, read the tech support FAQ, or request your lost password. This dumb message (and those ads) will appear on every screen until you register! Get rid of this crap by registering your own SA Forums Account and joining roughly 150,000 Goons, for the one-time price of $9.95! We charge money because it costs us money per month for bills, and since we don't believe in showing ads to our users, we try to make the money back through forum registrations.
 
  • Post
  • Reply
bagual
Oct 29, 2010

inconspicuous

ronya posted:

Yes, that's what "nebulous" means: opaque, de facto structure hard to characterize, hard to trace the boundaries or shape of. "Nebulous" doesn't mean "non-existent". There's a lot of dynastic privilege extraction without explicit mechanisms of inherited title. Nonetheless it's not a command hierarchy. You can't hope to arrest its leaders, if only you could identify them, in order to arrogate its apparent powers onto a revolutionary legislature.

I see, i thought you meant nebulous as in ill-defined. Anyway, the foiling left-wing plans part doesn't actually need coherence or actual organizational ability, most of the time what happens is if a law passes which is not really endorsed by the judiciary establishment, it's not applied at all. Most courts just mothball it and kindly pretend it doesn't exist. Brazilian institutional culture is masterful at dissimulation and conflict avoidance.

And that's taking out laws which are passed just for show, with no intention of being actually applied ever in a wink-wink nudge nudge way between the legislative assemblies and judiciary power. There''s a peculiar expression, "laws for englishmen to see", which dates back to the Empire, where the imperial congress would pass laws (mostly about slavery and such) only to appease the British embassy, quietly archiving them afterwards.

So yeah, this bizarre establishment might not have the organizational basis and coherence to take decisive action any way or another, but they sure can throw a wrench in the cog of anything the other constitutional powers do and make sure any institutional transition goes at a glacial pace.

Adbot
ADBOT LOVES YOU

joepinetree
Apr 5, 2012

ronya posted:

errr. I'm not denying that policy ideology has changed. All your remarks here are true, but I see you're still not getting what I'm saying - I'm saying that it's changed in a way that is essentially unrelated to the direction which the surrounding political debate has taken. Policy has moved in the same center-left neoliberal/third-way direction that it has in the rest of the Western world, especially from the 1990s onward.

However, the battling camps in Latin America don't seem to include any center-left neoliberals. The left maintains a rhetorical adherence to assorted heterodoxies. The right regards the distributive programs as illegitimate patronage rather than legitimate neoliberal ways to achieve social goals. Hence: the debate has had, and continues to have, remarkably little impact on actually-existing policy formation. So you have means-tested cash transfer schemes, elaborate public-private partnerships structured along contractual rather than managerial lines, etc., and both left and right pretend that it isn't textbook third-way neoliberalism.

You are either moving the goalposts (since you started this discussion by claiming that invoking the Chicago school was misleading and that the ideological bent they espoused did not matter) or conflating online debate about the more extreme cases (Venezuela) for the whole thing. The left hasn't maintained a "rhetorical adherence to assorted heterodoxies." Lula only got elected when he allied PT to the then PL and Jose Alencar, selected a BankBoston high executive to head the central bank. In any case, I don't see the point of discussing this further.

SexyBlindfold
Apr 24, 2008
i dont care how much probation i get capital letters are for squares hehe im so laid back an nice please read my low effort shitposts about the arab spring

thanxs!!!
I think what ronya's saying is that Latin American politics are peculiar in that the economic model (neoliberal with "soft" leftist touches, i.e. Brazil, Chile) is pretty solidly installed in most countries, with a relative consensus among the political leadership (and, one might assume, among their constituencies), and yet political discourse re:"the economy" is extremely polarized, even though the discourse isn't about the model, but about relatively minutial aspects, like food programs for the poor or school vouchers.

I don't really find it all that peculiar, for simple reasons: politics in Latin America by themselves tend to be extremely charged, not because people are extremely passionate about singular issues, but because our recent history contributes to a lot of pent-up animosity. Most voters in Latin America have lived under a dictatorship. Some of them have endured civil wars. Most left-of-center parties in Latin America which are either in power or the main opposition were born out of organized resistance against military dictatorships. Most right-of-center parties were born as spiritual successors of those dictatorships. A very significant voter base of both sides is comprised of people who either strongly want or strongly don't want to go back to either the days were people disappeared or the days where we were a rock's toss away from becoming the next Cuba. There simply hasn't been enough of a generational change for that kind of enmity to subside - and that's only in countries that have been relatively peaceful during the last 20 years.

joepinetree
Apr 5, 2012

SexyBlindfold posted:

I think what ronya's saying is that Latin American politics are peculiar in that the economic model (neoliberal with "soft" leftist touches, i.e. Brazil, Chile) is pretty solidly installed in most countries, with a relative consensus among the political leadership (and, one might assume, among their constituencies), and yet political discourse re:"the economy" is extremely polarized, even though the discourse isn't about the model, but about relatively minutial aspects, like food programs for the poor or school vouchers.

I don't really find it all that peculiar, for simple reasons: politics in Latin America by themselves tend to be extremely charged, not because people are extremely passionate about singular issues, but because our recent history contributes to a lot of pent-up animosity. Most voters in Latin America have lived under a dictatorship. Some of them have endured civil wars. Most left-of-center parties in Latin America which are either in power or the main opposition were born out of organized resistance against military dictatorships. Most right-of-center parties were born as spiritual successors of those dictatorships. A very significant voter base of both sides is comprised of people who either strongly want or strongly don't want to go back to either the days were people disappeared or the days where we were a rock's toss away from becoming the next Cuba. There simply hasn't been enough of a generational change for that kind of enmity to subside - and that's only in countries that have been relatively peaceful during the last 20 years.

But that is unrelated, or at least doesn't contradict, the notion that the Chicago boys had a huge impact on policy and are still key players in economic debates (which is what he was explicitly reacting to). You can't begin to understand how otherwise politically and ideologically aligned dictatorships like Chile, Brazil and Argentina all had completely different responses to the stagflation of the 70s and the external debt crises of the 80s without understanding the role of the Chicago boys, and of Chile as a kind of laboratory for structural adjustment policies that did not happen elsewhere at the time. Not to mention the fact that in countries like Brazil and Chile, the notion that the left maintains a "rhetorical adherence to assorted heterodoxies" is outright false, as on both countries the left got elected to begin with by renouncing publicly and visibly those heterodoxies. How the right has reacted to that renunciation has of course varied between highlighting it (e.g., claiming that Lula had adopted FHC's policies in toto) and questioning it (e.g. Dilma is a communist that is turning Brazil into Cuba) depending on how popular that left wing figure is.
And while the public at large will embark on hyperpolarized debates regarding policy that completely overstates the differences between the existing parties, the Brazilian experience shows that even minor differences in the execution of the relatively consensual policy agenda can lead to very significant differences in real world outcomes. And you are absolutely right that that polarization is not at all peculiar. See Obama the Muslim communist usurper, just because he wants a tax rate of 39% instead of 36% at the highest bracket.

El Chingon
Oct 9, 2012

Siselmo posted:

Usually, the more south you go the cheaper it gets. The rent I mentioned would give you a nice place in a not upper-class but otherwise pretty decent neighborhood in Colima or Villa de Álvarez. And some stuff is cheaper in Mexico. It depends on what. Fruits, veggies and most edible stuff I find them much cheaper over here and of better quality. Also, if you buy a lot of stuff second hand, then you can spend less than in Cali. Electronics and clothes of decent brand are no contest cheaper in Cali, though (I never buy new games here, just trade. And as plus-sized woman, the US has much more variety of plus size clothes of decent brands).

As papasyhotcakes said, in terms of gas prices, the oil crash made things worse, but the hikes in prices have been around waaaay before that.

On tax hikes, I don't know why they happened. AFAIK, they said it was to be more equal with the rest of the country. A lot of people here thought it was just another way for the government to milk more money. A few who are more conspiracy minded say it was planned between the US and Mexico in order to help the american economy near the border.

Also, keep in mind that in my area, the minimum wages are around 70 to 120 pesos a day. How the gently caress is someone expected to live with that I have no loving idea. Heck, once I get my degree in two and a half years, if I get a job with a weekly wage of ~$1500 I wouldn't complain.

OH YEAH! Almost forgot about the dollar! Before the 2008 crisis, the exchange rate was ~10.50 to 11 pesos for a dollar. During the crisis, it spiked a lot, reaching $15 at its worst (in exchange houses, it was around $14.70). Then, it sorta stabilized between $12.20 and $13.50. Now it has reached $15 again on banks and in exchange houses it's almost reaching it (today it was ~$14.70). For us at the border, not only is everything here getting more expensive, but also our money is worth less and less dollars, so even California is getting more expensive (and let's not forget the people that pay rent for their homes/businesses in dollars! because that totally is a thing).

I find it impressive how the views of the government change from place to place. I'm a mexican living in Mexico City, a bastion for the left wing. I do think the president is not doing that bad of a job, it's just that world events are just not helping. The increase of the value of the USD is not the government's fault, but it affects the economic plan deeply as there's a risk of inflation in the short/medium term.

The thing that is really loving us up is the oil prices. The government had to implement a cuts plan that will really impact many projects that were the highlight of this government (high speed train between Mexico City and Queretaro, oil extraction and exploration, a new airport in Mexico City...).

I do think the scandals regarding the personal properties of the president and his staff should be deeply investigated, but this has just been blown out of proportion by the media.

Regarding the dismissal of the journalist Carmen Aristegui, I do think she has her own political agenda and it's known she's been backed by Carlos Slim for quite some time. But I think her voice should not be silenced if we say we are a democracy. Even if I don't agree with some of her work, I know it is on the best interest of everyone that she continues her work as opposition to the current government to keep them in line.

FilthyImp
Sep 30, 2002

Anime Deviant

El Chingon posted:

I do think the president is not doing that bad of a job, it's just that world events are just not helping.
...
The thing that is really loving us up is the oil prices.
Wait. That's the same president that's going to denationalize PEMEX right?

Because it seems that the oil prices thing will get much worse if that happens...

El Chingon
Oct 9, 2012

FilthyImp posted:

Wait. That's the same president that's going to denationalize PEMEX right?

Because it seems that the oil prices thing will get much worse if that happens...

the decision on PEMEX was done 2 years ago IIRC, before the oil price crisis started, so there was no turning back from it.

Plutonis
Mar 25, 2011

A lot of people are now supporting Cid Gomes for president but while he was a trillion times more honest than every politician when he called out the congress, his 8 years as governor here in Ceará were pretty much ambiguous. Like while the interior areas were finally getting better quality education and healthcare, there were a lot of big 'white elephants' that left our state full with debt like buying new cars and uniforms for the police yet them not being able to actually diminish the atmosphere of fear and unease that crime brought to the capital and even some rural areas.

Sephyr
Aug 28, 2012
As a former Sao Paulo resident ( Now in Buenos Aires), Plutonis, could I ask for for a review of recent (year 2000 and on) review of Cearense politics? We get such little and filtered news from the Northeast, I rarely know what to believe.

I remember when Roseane Sarney (daughter of one of Brazil's most enduring political robber lords) was the Great White Hope, since Fernando Henrique was completing his two terms ad could not run again, so her state (Maranhao) was suddenly hyped on TV and magazines as te economic powerhouse of the North and how much she had improved it. Even in soap operas characters suddenly began taking vacations there to gawk at the state's wonders.

The suddenly a federal police raid happened in her hubby's business and leaked about a billion pictures of unsourced cash in their safes to the press, sinking her candidacy just as it gathered steam. Nothing happened, of course, because this was grotesquely illegal. But it's a good example of how low the olitics here go; the PSDB was all too happy to kneecap its main ally, even abusing the fedPol to do so, the moment it started getting too ambitious.

joepinetree
Apr 5, 2012
And gotta love Folha de Sao Paulo. In the last two weeks, it came out that the whole petrobras scandal started during Cardoso's presidency, after Cardoso relaxed the requirements for contract bids at Petrobras. Since then, Folha did 2 interviews with Cardoso that were complete puff pieces, and ended up with two quotes as headlines, one saying "Corruption at Petrobras comes from the moral looseness of PT," and "Lula is more to blame than anybody."

joepinetree fucked around with this message at 03:12 on Mar 24, 2015

silly mane
Nov 26, 2004
I lived in Buenos Aires in 2010 and 2011. I moved there with only a very general sense of political and socioeconomic goings-on, and deliberately kept my nose out of politics there, primarily because I found living under and following US/Philadelphia politics to be, basically, exhausting. Overall, my time there was was great, and not that unlike my life in my home city for me. For reference, I'm an artist living in a poor-rear end area of Philly and making less than $30k/year through the internet. I rented a cheap room in a bland residential part of Buenos Aires (San Cristobal) while making a bit less money. Aside from Buenos Aires' much more visible and present homeless and dirt-poor population, more of my friends than not being mugged on the street at one point or another (as well as myself), and my occasionally running into people with some bafflingly backwards sociopolitical views, as I said before, things were about the same as far as my standard of living and what I was doing go.

I'm considering moving back there sometime soon. All of the news I've been privy to lately coming out of Argentina has seemed pretty grim, and I get the impression that a bunch of things have gotten worse while basically nothing has gotten better. What I'm mostly interested in with this post is how these things have affected/will affect life for someone like me there. I've talked to an Argentine friend or two and they say that it's basically the same as when I left, but things like the restrictions on/bullshit surrounding imports that I've read about in this thread seem like the type of indicators of a coming-apart-at-the-seams that could be or turn into the basis of some real depressed and volatile conditions. Can anyone comment on that?

I've also been entertaining the notion of moving to Uruguay instead. I've visited there a bunch of times and pretty much everybody I've met there/talked to about it has had a lot of great things to say. On paper it seems like a pretty stable and well-rounded place to live, but there must be more to it than that that I'm not aware of. Like a page or two back when someone mentioned how Uruguay genocided its native population. Are there any big negatives about Uruguay that you would have someone like me know before deciding to move there? Are there any good reasons not to move there?

I wish I had something to contribute, but hopefully this will be interesting to someone. I'm learning a lot from this thread, thanks yall.

Badger of Basra
Jul 26, 2007

Deep 6 posted:

I lived in Buenos Aires in 2010 and 2011. I moved there with only a very general sense of political and socioeconomic goings-on, and deliberately kept my nose out of politics there, primarily because I found living under and following US/Philadelphia politics to be, basically, exhausting. Overall, my time there was was great, and not that unlike my life in my home city for me. For reference, I'm an artist living in a poor-rear end area of Philly and making less than $30k/year through the internet. I rented a cheap room in a bland residential part of Buenos Aires (San Cristobal) while making a bit less money. Aside from Buenos Aires' much more visible and present homeless and dirt-poor population, more of my friends than not being mugged on the street at one point or another (as well as myself), and my occasionally running into people with some bafflingly backwards sociopolitical views, as I said before, things were about the same as far as my standard of living and what I was doing go.

I'm considering moving back there sometime soon. All of the news I've been privy to lately coming out of Argentina has seemed pretty grim, and I get the impression that a bunch of things have gotten worse while basically nothing has gotten better. What I'm mostly interested in with this post is how these things have affected/will affect life for someone like me there. I've talked to an Argentine friend or two and they say that it's basically the same as when I left, but things like the restrictions on/bullshit surrounding imports that I've read about in this thread seem like the type of indicators of a coming-apart-at-the-seams that could be or turn into the basis of some real depressed and volatile conditions. Can anyone comment on that?

I've also been entertaining the notion of moving to Uruguay instead. I've visited there a bunch of times and pretty much everybody I've met there/talked to about it has had a lot of great things to say. On paper it seems like a pretty stable and well-rounded place to live, but there must be more to it than that that I'm not aware of. Like a page or two back when someone mentioned how Uruguay genocided its native population. Are there any big negatives about Uruguay that you would have someone like me know before deciding to move there? Are there any good reasons not to move there?

I wish I had something to contribute, but hopefully this will be interesting to someone. I'm learning a lot from this thread, thanks yall.

From an outsider's perspective, whatever's going on now will probably change after the next president is inaugurated. Macri and Scioli are more market oriented than Cristina and things will probably open up, especially if Macri wins. I'm not sure if there will be a crisis, but if it does it will probably happen relatively soon.

Sick_Boy
Jun 3, 2007

The reason Milton wrote in fetters when he wrote of Angels and God, and at liberty when of Devils and Hell, is because he was a true poet and of the Devil's party without knowing it.

Deep 6 posted:



I've also been entertaining the notion of moving to Uruguay instead. I've visited there a bunch of times and pretty much everybody I've met there/talked to about it has had a lot of great things to say. On paper it seems like a pretty stable and well-rounded place to live, but there must be more to it than that that I'm not aware of. Like a page or two back when someone mentioned how Uruguay genocided its native population. Are there any big negatives about Uruguay that you would have someone like me know before deciding to move there? Are there any good reasons not to move there?

Prices, prices, prices. The cost of living is absurd, on par with Germany, only with a Latin American median salary. Tourists expecting a good bang for their buck often are shocked. I see a lot of brazilian visitors arguing angrily with shopkeepers thinking they're been swindled. People in my generation (around 30 years old) living with their parents is common as sin, specially in the middle class.

If you have kids, send them to a private school because the public system is a) overpopulated and underfunded (think 60 kids in a classroom designed for 30, with teachers having to teach 40 hours a week, not counting prep or grading, so they burn out from the hours and massive classes, since they also mean towers of poo poo to grade), and b) wank due to the need to keep up graduation rates high and dropout rates low. I worked at a highschool in a poor area, and we had an inspector from the government literally telling us to "just play games with them"- the thing is to keep them in the system and off the streets, not, you know, learning; besides, kids from that area never make it to college (I'm not saying that, an EDUCATION MINISTER said that a while back).

Security is fine. Not as rough as Buenos Aires, which doesn't stop the right from acting and crowing like we live in a war zone.

If you want to be a semi-independent creator of... well, anything, aim to export because the internal market for non-essential things like music and cinema and books and theatre and paintings is so small that it's hard to break even if you are one of them creative types.

Those are the big negatives, I think. The positives are well publicized and really loving valuable.

Edit: Also, get ready to tremble when you look across the Rio towards Argentina, because if Argentina or Brazil gently caress up, they bring Uruguay down with them. It's not as bad is it used to be, since our economy got a bit less dependent on those markets in the past few years, but still.

Edit 2: Oh, get ready for the casual racism / homophobia. Getting a bit better on the latter front thanks to a very awesome and active LGBT community, but homophobic slurs are the insults du jour still. Just thought I'd mention that. It is a tolerant place, but still hasn't kicked the habit of casually throwing really hosed up poo poo in mid conversation without realizing it's hosed up.

Sick_Boy fucked around with this message at 04:01 on Mar 24, 2015

silly mane
Nov 26, 2004

Sick_Boy posted:

Prices, prices, prices. The cost of living is absurd, on par with Germany, only with a Latin American median salary. Tourists expecting a good bang for their buck often are shocked. I see a lot of brazilian visitors arguing angrily with shopkeepers thinking they're been swindled. People in my generation (around 30 years old) living with their parents is common as sin, specially in the middle class.

If you have kids, send them to a private school because the public system is a) overpopulated and underfunded (think 60 kids in a classroom designed for 30, with teachers having to teach 40 hours a week, not counting prep or grading, so they burn out from the hours and massive classes, since they also mean towers of poo poo to grade), and b) wank due to the need to keep up graduation rates high and dropout rates low. I worked at a highschool in a poor area, and we had an inspector from the government literally telling us to "just play games with them"- the thing is to keep them in the system and off the streets, not, you know, learning; besides, kids from that area never make it to college (I'm not saying that, an EDUCATION MINISTER said that a while back).

Security is fine. Not as rough as Buenos Aires, which doesn't stop the right from acting and crowing like we live in a war zone.

If you want to be a semi-independent creator of... well, anything, aim to export because the internal market for non-essential things like music and cinema and books and theatre and paintings is so small that it's hard to break even if you are one of them creative types.

Those are the big negatives, I think. The positives are well publicized and really loving valuable.

Edit: Also, get ready to tremble when you look across the Rio towards Argentina, because if Argentina or Brazil gently caress up, they bring Uruguay down with them. It's not as bad is it used to be, since our economy got a bit less dependent on those markets in the past few years, but still.

Edit 2: Oh, get ready for the casual racism / homophobia. Getting a bit better on the latter front thanks to a very awesome and active LGBT community, but homophobic slurs are the insults du jour still. Just thought I'd mention that. It is a tolerant place, but still hasn't kicked the habit of casually throwing really hosed up poo poo in mid conversation without realizing it's hosed up.

This is just the type of thing I was interested in hearing, thanks. Luckily I don't have kids and my work is separate from my art, so there are two big things I won't have to worry about personally. Still, good to know about those (lovely hosed-up) things. I wouldn't have expected such weird overt classism from a Uruguayan official, but hey that's just me being blissfully naive, and now having heard about it, it's hardly shocking to my US-hardened sensibilities. The racism/homophobia thing is no surprise either, and I'm no stranger to them in either hemisphere (although my friends in BsAs were pretty much totally on the level with that stuff aside from having had extremely limited contact with black people ever).

Hey - if I do decide to go forward with a move to Uruguay, I might have some more questions for you in the future via PM or whatever, if that would be ok with you.

NEED TOILET PAPER
Mar 22, 2013

by XyloJW
So Puerto Rico isn't usually a source for cool and good news (:smith:) but the LGBTQ movement there just got a heartening bit of news from the island's Supreme Court when they announced that the government won't be enforcing any bans on same-sex marriage. This is pretty surprising because Puerto Rico, like the rest of Latin America, has a pretty serious cultural stigma against gays (and women too, for that matter).

Latin Americans can have nice things, sometimes.

Plutonis
Mar 25, 2011

Sephyr posted:

As a former Sao Paulo resident ( Now in Buenos Aires), Plutonis, could I ask for for a review of recent (year 2000 and on) review of Cearense politics? We get such little and filtered news from the Northeast, I rarely know what to believe.

I remember when Roseane Sarney (daughter of one of Brazil's most enduring political robber lords) was the Great White Hope, since Fernando Henrique was completing his two terms ad could not run again, so her state (Maranhao) was suddenly hyped on TV and magazines as te economic powerhouse of the North and how much she had improved it. Even in soap operas characters suddenly began taking vacations there to gawk at the state's wonders.

Good news, these elections Maranhão elected a PCdoB candidate for governor who is doing his best to dismantle the Sarney corruption machine. Also the Northeast as a whole has gotten a lot better in the last 12 years due to investment in local business and the new welfare programs getting a large portion of the population out that was historically marginalized into decent living conditions. Still hosed up that Dilma cancelled the refinery that was going to be built on Pecem but it was due to the whole Petrobras case so it can't be helped.

Badger of Basra
Jul 26, 2007

New poll says 60% favor Dilma's impeachment :ughh:

Plutonis
Mar 25, 2011

Cunha and Temer ruling the country is going to own so much. It's going to be like having Frank Underwood as president but somehow even worse.

Markovnikov
Nov 6, 2010

Badger of Basra posted:

From an outsider's perspective, whatever's going on now will probably change after the next president is inaugurated. Macri and Scioli are more market oriented than Cristina and things will probably open up, especially if Macri wins. I'm not sure if there will be a crisis, but if it does it will probably happen relatively soon.

I'm pretty sure it'll take at least a minor crisis to get out of the rut we are in. And lol if you think Macri will make things better, at best we would get another 90's.

Deep 6 posted:

I've also been entertaining the notion of moving to Uruguay instead. I've visited there a bunch of times and pretty much everybody I've met there/talked to about it has had a lot of great things to say. On paper it seems like a pretty stable and well-rounded place to live, but there must be more to it than that that I'm not aware of. Like a page or two back when someone mentioned how Uruguay genocided its native population. Are there any big negatives about Uruguay that you would have someone like me know before deciding to move there? Are there any good reasons not to move there?

Genociding aboriginals is like a rite of passage for any American nation so I don't really know why people are so shocked by it when even the U S of A did it.

RE: Uruguay, yeah, their main problem is that poo poo is very expensive there. Things were like twice the price they were here in Bs As last time I visited. I have family in Uruguay, and when they come here they are always buying books and clothes and bathroom supplies (parfum, shampoo, etc) and taking it back. Otherwise, they are doing well nowadays, but LA countries are always caught up in some boom-bust cycle. They are far ruraler/chiller than Argentina, and you wont get the cosmopolitan-esque quality of Bs As even in Montevideo.

Badger of Basra
Jul 26, 2007

Markovnikov posted:

I'm pretty sure it'll take at least a minor crisis to get out of the rut we are in. And lol if you think Macri will make things better, at best we would get another 90's.


Genociding aboriginals is like a rite of passage for any American nation so I don't really know why people are so shocked by it when even the U S of A did it.

RE: Uruguay, yeah, their main problem is that poo poo is very expensive there. Things were like twice the price they were here in Bs As last time I visited. I have family in Uruguay, and when they come here they are always buying books and clothes and bathroom supplies (parfum, shampoo, etc) and taking it back. Otherwise, they are doing well nowadays, but LA countries are always caught up in some boom-bust cycle. They are far ruraler/chiller than Argentina, and you wont get the cosmopolitan-esque quality of Bs As even in Montevideo.

Yeah Macri won't make things long-term better, but "The Markets" will decide that he can Make Tough Choices so there will be less pressure.

TheLovablePlutonis posted:

Cunha and Temer ruling the country is going to own so much. It's going to be like having Frank Underwood as president but somehow even worse.

The reaction to this is probably the stupidest thing I've ever seen, if these people are serious. There is no way anyone can believe that the way to fight corruption in Brazil is to make someone from the loving PMDB president.

Sick_Boy
Jun 3, 2007

The reason Milton wrote in fetters when he wrote of Angels and God, and at liberty when of Devils and Hell, is because he was a true poet and of the Devil's party without knowing it.

Deep 6 posted:

This is just the type of thing I was interested in hearing, thanks. Luckily I don't have kids and my work is separate from my art, so there are two big things I won't have to worry about personally. Still, good to know about those (lovely hosed-up) things. I wouldn't have expected such weird overt classism from a Uruguayan official, but hey that's just me being blissfully naive, and now having heard about it, it's hardly shocking to my US-hardened sensibilities. The racism/homophobia thing is no surprise either, and I'm no stranger to them in either hemisphere (although my friends in BsAs were pretty much totally on the level with that stuff aside from having had extremely limited contact with black people ever).

Hey - if I do decide to go forward with a move to Uruguay, I might have some more questions for you in the future via PM or whatever, if that would be ok with you.

Sure thing. Luckily the official is no longer around, now we just need decent budget / infrastructure / reorganization for our educational system...

Polidoro
Jan 5, 2011


Huevo se dice argidia. Argidia!
Why would a non-rich person voluntarily live in Uruguay?

Sick_Boy
Jun 3, 2007

The reason Milton wrote in fetters when he wrote of Angels and God, and at liberty when of Devils and Hell, is because he was a true poet and of the Devil's party without knowing it.

Polidoro posted:

Why would a non-rich person voluntarily live in Uruguay?

It's nice. Quiet. Good beaches. Moderate in many aspects. You can get gay married. You don't have to be rich to be happy here.

But it sure helps.

silly mane
Nov 26, 2004
Having looked into cost-of-living stats like cost of groceries, restaurant meals, utilities etc., and having perused live house/apartment rental classifieds, Montevideo is pretty comparable to Philadelphia (where I live now), and in some aspects cheaper. Assuming you can make the same money (which I can) then as far as I can tell it's a lateral move cost-wise, while you get things like a nicer climate, less violent crime, cheaper healthcare, cheaper education (thinking of doing some studying there myself). Unless I'm grossly misinformed here, Montevideo may be expensive compared to a lot of other places in South America, but not so much by urban US standards. Personally it seems like a pretty good option, the only thing I'm really concerned about is it being too boring for me, which I've heard from people. And my experiences in Uruguay have been pretty great (couchsurfing in Montevideo, camping in Santa Teresa national park, playing shows in MVD, Paysandu and Salto). I'm no expert, but the more I look into it, it seems like one of the nicest places overall to live in in South America.

Sick_Boy
Jun 3, 2007

The reason Milton wrote in fetters when he wrote of Angels and God, and at liberty when of Devils and Hell, is because he was a true poet and of the Devil's party without knowing it.

Deep 6 posted:

Having looked into cost-of-living stats like cost of groceries, restaurant meals, utilities etc., and having perused live house/apartment rental classifieds, Montevideo is pretty comparable to Philadelphia (where I live now), and in some aspects cheaper. Assuming you can make the same money (which I can) then as far as I can tell it's a lateral move cost-wise, while you get things like a nicer climate, less violent crime, cheaper healthcare, cheaper education (thinking of doing some studying there myself). Unless I'm grossly misinformed here, Montevideo may be expensive compared to a lot of other places in South America, but not so much by urban US standards. Personally it seems like a pretty good option, the only thing I'm really concerned about is it being too boring for me, which I've heard from people. And my experiences in Uruguay have been pretty great (couchsurfing in Montevideo, camping in Santa Teresa national park, playing shows in MVD, Paysandu and Salto). I'm no expert, but the more I look into it, it seems like one of the nicest places overall to live in in South America.

Oh, if you can sustain your level of income, you should be morethan fine. As for the boredom, there's a rather interesting underground scene- it's just never publicized in tourist articles. There's a bit of everything, but it we are only a million and a half people, so don't expect a big-city vibe.

TheImmigrant
Jan 18, 2011

Polidoro posted:

Why would a non-rich person voluntarily live in Uruguay?

Because Uruguay is cool. It's a pleasant, small and stable haven down south. Boring food, but pretty people and stoner culture, if that's your thing. I'm a (relatively) rich person, and I love Uruguay. Smoke a joint, drink mate, surf up north. It's probably my favorite place in the world - Cabo Polonio. Uruguayos aren't resentniks, unless you're porteņo.

Polidoro
Jan 5, 2011


Huevo se dice argidia. Argidia!
Well I'm a relatively poor Uruguayan and I think it sucks.

silly mane
Nov 26, 2004

Polidoro posted:

Well I'm a relatively poor Uruguayan and I think it sucks.

Care to elaborate? Being relatively poor anywhere sucks (I would know), but does being a relatively poor Uruguayan suck any more than being a relatively poor Brazilian, or Mexican, or Russian, or USAmerican or whatever? Because I don't know of a reason why it would (except for the fact that all of those countries suck, everything sucks everywhere and ignorance, death and misery are all around us at all times).

I'm not trying to say that you're not right about Uruguay sucking, just curious as to what your take on it is.

silly mane fucked around with this message at 07:15 on Mar 25, 2015

Polidoro
Jan 5, 2011


Huevo se dice argidia. Argidia!
I was writing a longer reply but accidentally logged out and lost it.

Basically the cost of living is much higher, the average rent in Montevideo is over 50% of the average salary. Energy prices are crazy high and winter is colder than in most Latin American countries so winter is a nice poverty meter. Food is expensive so most people's diet consists of mate, rice, flour and bad meat. And yerba mate prices are ridiculous right now so scratch that.

I'm too sleepy to elaborate more. Maybe tomorrow.

Sick_Boy
Jun 3, 2007

The reason Milton wrote in fetters when he wrote of Angels and God, and at liberty when of Devils and Hell, is because he was a true poet and of the Devil's party without knowing it.

Polidoro posted:

I was writing a longer reply but accidentally logged out and lost it.

Basically the cost of living is much higher, the average rent in Montevideo is over 50% of the average salary. Energy prices are crazy high and winter is colder than in most Latin American countries so winter is a nice poverty meter. Food is expensive so most people's diet consists of mate, rice, flour and bad meat. And yerba mate prices are ridiculous right now so scratch that.


These are all true things, SPECIALLY the rent. Jesus Christ.

But Deep 6 is right when he says been poor anywhere sucks- and all in all within the continent Uruguay is one of the better places even if you are not rich.

TheImmigrant
Jan 18, 2011

Polidoro posted:

Well I'm a relatively poor Uruguayan and I think it sucks.

Compared to what?

Yeah, being poor, relative or absolute, sucks anywhere. Still, poor in Uruguay is preferable to being average in Honduras or Cuba.

I don't remember rent being unreasonable, even in Pocitos. My issue with Uruguay is monotony of the food. I'm happy drinking mate or terere all day, but spare me yet another loving milanesa.

TheImmigrant fucked around with this message at 13:50 on Mar 25, 2015

uninterrupted
Jun 20, 2011

TheImmigrant posted:

Compared to what?

Yeah, being poor, relative or absolute, sucks anywhere. Still, poor in Uruguay is preferable to being average in Honduras or Cuba.

I don't remember rent being unreasonable, even in Pocitos. My issue with Uruguay is monotony of the food. I'm happy drinking mate or terere all day, but spare me yet another loving milanesa.

I don't know how anyone could get bored of chivito.

Ghost of Mussolini
Jun 26, 2011
Can-walk-into-any-restaurant-and-get-milanesa-privilege.

Some of you don't know how well off you are let me tell you that

El Chingon
Oct 9, 2012
Argentinian and Uruguayan restaurants are very popular here in Mexico. I'd be trilled to enjoy that terrific cousine everyday although my colon would soon regret it.

Dias
Feb 20, 2011

by sebmojo
I was born, raised and still live in Southern Brazil. How do you get tired of the food. How.

Then again, I could eat rice, beans, beef/chicken (milanesa or not) and salad every day for lunch with no issue at all, hehe.

Azran
Sep 3, 2012

And what should one do to be remembered?
People who diss milanesa have no soul. Now, mate? I can understand.

Ghost of Mussolini
Jun 26, 2011

Dias posted:

I was born, raised and still live in Southern Brazil.
My goondolences.

Tony Sorete
Jun 19, 2011

Manager de rock

Azran posted:

People who diss milanesa have no soul. Now, mate? I can understand.

Nothing but the truth, this.

Sick_Boy
Jun 3, 2007

The reason Milton wrote in fetters when he wrote of Angels and God, and at liberty when of Devils and Hell, is because he was a true poet and of the Devil's party without knowing it.

TheImmigrant posted:

Compared to what?

Yeah, being poor, relative or absolute, sucks anywhere. Still, poor in Uruguay is preferable to being average in Honduras or Cuba.

I don't remember rent being unreasonable, even in Pocitos. My issue with Uruguay is monotony of the food. I'm happy drinking mate or terere all day, but spare me yet another loving milanesa.

Luckily, some diversity is catching on as of late.

Adbot
ADBOT LOVES YOU

Stockholm Syndrome
Mar 30, 2010
Hope you chileans get your poo poo in order.

Stockholm Syndrome fucked around with this message at 03:23 on Mar 26, 2015

  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
  • Post
  • Reply