When my Argentinian boyfriend told me that he had hidden a pile of dollars in the air conditioning unit, I was worried to say the least. But we live on the 10th floor, I began, imagining hundreds of dollar bills flying over the green patches of garden far below. The plant is old, and the box is after all on the outside of the wall, what if it is rusted and a hole is slowly forming? Or what if it just falls down? This cooling system can be used for so many things. But it is fixed on the outside of the wall on the tenth floor. Photo: Hilda Nyfløt / news Gjemmeleken I know some of the stories. A mother-in-law who died suddenly of a heart attack and no one in the family knew which wall she had hidden her savings in. A grandson who found $100,000 in a shoebox in his late grandfather’s closet. The uncle who hides dollar bills inside the water tank in the toilet. But the air conditioning? My boyfriend went out of the living room, and quickly returned with a screwdriver. He carefully unscrewed the lid of the plant and pulled out the plastic bag with a good stack of dollars. No then, he assured, this is a good hiding place. Best not to drop objects from the window at our air conditioning unit in Buenos Aires. Photo: Hilda Nyfløt / news Dollar in the mattress My girlfriend is not alone. Last year, Argentines hid a total of 249.5 billion dollars under their “mattresses”, according to figures from INDEC, which is the country’s statistics agency. The bank is not a safe option, they have learned. The crises regularly return without exception, and at the previous one in 2001, dark lattice doors barred the entrances to the banks. A fake dollar bill with the image of presidential candidate Javier Milei from the far right is hung in this lamp shop in Buenos Aires. The owner has faith that Milei can get something done with the wretched peso, which is always losing value. Photo: Hilda Nyfløt / news The treasury was empty and people’s savings disappeared in no time. Today, over 20 years later, there is a new economic crisis. Despite the fact that banks offer physical safes in well-protected vaults, many Argentines dare not do anything other than hide valuables at home. Those who have money also have plenty of bank accounts abroad. – Every Argentine has several thousand dollars hidden under the mattress, says lamp shop owner Emilio Cavallero (in the middle) to loud protests from his brother Mariano and son Axel, who say they have nowhere near that much savings. Emilio wants to exchange the Argentine pesos for US dollars. Photo: Hilda Nyfløt / news Double-digit inflation since the 1940s The chase for dollars has its explanation in the wretched Argentine peso. Nobody can remember exactly which decade it started, but for the last eight years inflation has been around 30 per cent a year. That was bad enough, until Argentina took out the largest loan in world history from the International Monetary Fund. There was a pandemic, war in Ukraine, and then one of the century’s worst droughts hit Argentine agriculture. No one has confidence in the peso, no one has confidence in Argentina and Argentines have no confidence in each other or their politicians. By the New Year, annual inflation will reach 181 percent or more, according to analysts, and the government is constantly ordering loads of newly printed banknotes. If you have space in the garage, it will be better to buy bricks than to leave the peso in your wallet. After transferring kroner to pesos with the money transfer company Western Union, I’m ready to pay the month’s rent in Buenos Aires. Renting an apartment in the capital costs many hundreds of thousands of pesos a month a day – or well over a million. Photo: Hilda Nyfløt / news Lack of essential goods The heavy loss in value leads to frequent exchange from pesos to dollars for those who can save. The housing dream is realized, for example, only in dollars. But Argentines cannot buy dollars as they want at the bank. There are restrictions. The country’s foreign exchange reserves, in dollars, are at crisis-low levels. The levels are so low that imported products, which must be paid for in dollars, occasionally disappear. Like when there was a shortage of car wheels in January, coffee bean hoarding in the spring or welding parts concerns in the summer. Last week there was a petrol crisis with hour-long queues to fill up the tank. There were long queues and rationing of petrol and diesel in Argentina last week. Although the presidential candidates believe the shortage arose for various reasons, it is partly due to the state oil company YPF having to shut down an oil refinery that converts crude oil into fuel. The company did not receive imported crude oil because the Central Bank has a dollar shortage and does not get paid for imported goods. Photo: Tomas Cuesta / Reuters In the hospitals, there is almost no contrast fluid left during the day, and November is certainly not the month to have a heart attack or stroke. There is a serious shortage of medical equipment for treatment. The most valuable note is 2,000 pesos, which can be equivalent to two or six dollars. Or something in between if you want. The Mysterious Blue Dollar Rate For Hold On Now. It so happens that there are at least 13 different dollar exchange rates in the country. You have the official one of course, the one set by the government and which the banks must follow. It is mostly used in international trade and you can buy 200 pesos for one dollar. Then you have the blue dollar rate, which jumps high and low. It is always a topic of conversation and featured in the newspaper. Taking a trip to the bank quickly takes a long time when everyone has to deposit many hundreds of notes into their account. Argentinians often complain and sigh together about the system in the long queues. Photo: Hilda Nyfløt / news Those who carry out the change of this course are called “arbolitos”, or small trees in Norwegian, and their offices have been named “huler”. Technically they are illegal, but the state still allows it. At the time of writing, you get 850 pesos for one dollar, although it was up to 1050 last week. And then you have the Qatari dollar, which was introduced for Argentines using their bank cards during the soccer World Cup in the same country. The Coldplay dollar is for the music industry and the soy dollar is naturally for soy producers. You have the future dollar, the luxury dollar and the solidarity dollar variant. Exchange office under the guise of selling lamps When I first visited Argentina several years ago, the message was clear: Take dollars with you in your luggage. Many tourists often do that, otherwise they risk getting few pesos for the kroner in the ATM. At that time I showed up at an office in the city centre. Up on the eighth floor, behind the door on the right, the exchange office was modestly furnished. White painted walls, a desk and a banknote counting machine. The pesos slid through the machine before disappearing into my pocket. The man behind the desk accepted the dollars. I also know a special lamp shop. I honestly don’t know how the lamp sales are going, because it seems that the main business of the owner is dollar exchange. It is easier to get a “Juan” to come to your home on a moped. Driving “arbolitos” wear money belts under their T-shirts around their stomachs. But there are also lots of open exchange offices with “arbolitos”, small trees, which call tourists into the city’s shopping streets. In this financial part of the city, the yellow money transport cars run almost like shuttle traffic. The notes are counted and redistributed. No one knows what they will be worth tomorrow. The policy interest rate is 133 per cent. There is a separate market for speculators who exchange large sums in the right place at the right time. Argentina’s “Trump” can win the presidential election Next Sunday, the Argentines will elect a new president. The right-wing populist “rock star” and economist Javier Milei is the favourite. The controversial presidential candidate from the far right, Javier Milei, has carried a chainsaw in the election campaign to symbolize how he wants to cut state budgets and close down the Central Bank and several ministries. Photo: Natacha Pisarenko / AP Some of the popularity can be explained by the fact that Argentines have grown tired of inflation, parallel currency markets and economic crisis. In addition, Milei is often angry, rude and hot-tempered. It should just be missing, believe many Argentines, who are also frustrated by the crisis-ridden economy. Milei wants to stop inflation by replacing the peso with dollars, severely cutting government spending and shutting down the Central Bank. But it can be difficult to buy in dollars for everyone when the treasury is empty. President Alberto Fernández of the Peronist coalition “Union for the Fatherland” has been working from Argentina’s presidential palace, the Pink House, for the past four years. He is not standing for re-election in the crisis-stricken country with sky-high inflation of 180 percent. His party has been hit by a number of corruption scandals. Photo: Hilda Nyfløt / news Over 40 per cent poor In a country rich in natural resources with everything from cows, agriculture, minerals and gas, six out of ten children are considered poor. 40.1 percent of the country’s population lives in poverty in what was once among the world’s most prosperous countries. Milei’s opponent is the incumbent Finance Minister Sergio Massa from the Peronist coalition of the centre-left. Triple-digit inflation is happening on his watch, and that hasn’t exactly made him very popular. Poverty has increased under Finance Minister Sergio Massa, who is now standing as a presidential candidate in the country’s elections next Sunday. While 36.5 per cent of the country’s population lived in poverty at the beginning of 2022, the figure is now 40.1 per cent. There are 46 million people living in Argentina. Photo: Mariana Nedelcu / Reuters “Argentina is never boring” Regardless of who wins, it will be difficult to avoid that the price of bread will soon hit 3,000 pesos. “Argentina is never boring”, Argentinians often tell me, adding that this is “the land of madness”. To live here, you have to be “pillo”, or sneak like a fox. As a Norwegian, I try my best to keep up. At least we’ve removed the dollars from the air conditioner before this is published. But it mostly has to do with a family of bats that settled nearby. In any case, it is almost summer, and the facility will not be used for anything other than cooling. Tips for good hiding places are gratefully received.
ttn-69
Decades of sky-high inflation and economic crisis have meant that Argentines don’t trust anyone – news Urix – Foreign news and documentaries
