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My Wife was born in The Bahamas . Her Mother was a Canadian, who went down there in `1941 to be a school teacher. She married a Bahamian man , whose ancestors first went there in 1715, from Dorset , in England. My Wife is the oldest of four sibs. She has a interest in family history, and while doing research on her maternal Grandfather, she found that he had bought 225 acres of land on Abaco Island in 1897. The land has never been built on, and is on a point.
When we were down there in Nassau, in 2009, she found that the deed for that land was still valid.
That 225 acres is now for sale, at a price of Nine Million US Dollars. My Wife and her three siblings are the sole owners. Here is a link to the real estate ad for it.
Well, Jim.....let me tell you, thank God your wife looked it up, and it was valid......hope you land a deal soon...perhaps they can build a nice resort or vacation home type deal on it.......and no, lol, I sure am not in the market for the same!
Back to Argentina.....new lyrics to the chorus of "Don't cry for me, Argentina"
"...Don't cry for me, my Christina(Kirchner),
your good credit has completely left you,
your bonds defaulted,
your cash assaulted,
you blew your promise,
IMF now keeps its' distance....."
So what. We have cities the size of small countries go bankrupt. Our own citizen's default on loans and other financial responsibilities at the drop of a hat. We bail out huge corporations because not doing so would create a financial implosion.
They threw in the towel. Here we strangle every last penny before we cave. The big difference here? We propped up disasters far bigger just to say we didn't get flushed.We are manipulating our own economy on such a scale that Argentina looks like a payday loan gone bad.
On the BBC news this morning the Argentinians were blaming America for them having to default. They said the "shameful" handling of the funds case by the "incompetent" American mediator Daniel Pollack was to blame for their default.
I find it amazing that Argentina, a country that has consistently lied about the true state of their economy and has de-faulted before, has the gall to blame America for it's woes. Argentina is a country rich in natural resources, but the government, whose members quite frankly couldn't get drunk in a brewery have p...ed it all away.
I'm afraid Argentina has become a byword for incompetence and financial mis-management.
Argentina should stop tapping outside debt markets if they don't want to pay. It's a 2 way road to be honest.
1. Argentina wants outside financing so they have to play by other country's laws and courts. No way around it. If you don't want to abide by US Court decisions, stop issuing dollar denominated bonds.
2. Vulture idiot hedge fund managers try and capitalize on the misery of the country so they fight tooth and nail in the US courts.
Quite frankly I don't feel sorry for either party. They both brought upon problems to themselves.
..would it have been different if Argentina won the World Cup final?
I really think it would have...they would have had too much national pride going on to default...laugh, but I think
they would not have...after they lost to Germany, I think they just stopped giving a D@mn...
My opinion anyway.....if a world war can start with an out of work serbs gunshot, surely a national default can start with a World Cup loss/humiliation...
I'm being totally serious with what I'm saying from here to the end of this response. Argentina would never have defaulted like this (nor 12-13 years ago nor beforehand), or would have been less likely to default, had any of the following happened differently in its history:
1) the British manage to take over Buenos Aires in their invasions in 1806-07. No, this is not a case of “para ingles ver” (when one is fooled by the mere appearance of British stuff), because what we're talking about is that the British and Irish settlers pour into Argentina in such a world like they do in the United States, Canada, Australia, etc. and both the settlers and the British government bring in British institutions of common law, more equal land ownership, civil society, etc. The Spanish people that are remaining get absorbed into that society but keep their laws and religion (no different than the Quebecois or the Afrikaners), even though at times they might be in conflict with the British. This produces a society where British investment (e.g. railroads) was not direct like it was in real-life Argentina and thus vulnerable to nationalist attacks by demagogues like Peron, but rather (as in Canada or Australia) which was indirect and rail companies and so forth would have been owned by Argentines and headquartered in Buenos Aires rather than London. The end result is that Argentina would be a developed country like Canada or Australia and not the basket case it's been these past decades.
2) rural lands get distributed more equally in the early 1900s than in real life
3) no coup in 1930
4) Roberto Ortiz's diabetes holds off ca. 1940 and he can remain president and carry on his non-corrupt policies, and perhaps Peron doesn't take over in 1945 and there would be a more moderated and/or delayed version of Argentina's post-1940s chaotic situation
5) Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner (CFK) doesn't become president in 2007, and someone more technocratic and capable is elected instead
For all these missed opportunities, I'm not saying that they directly caused this most recent default, or the one 12-13 years ago, or hyperinflation, or things like that. What I am saying, however, is that all the processes going on in Argentina's history because of missing these opportunities have eventually led to the political and economic chaos of the past several decades, or at least the 2001-02 default or at least this default. For example, the fact that the British were defeated in Buenos Aires in 1806-07 caused the Spanish and their inheritors, the independent Argentines, to keep the Hispanic pattern of quite unequal land ownership as well as autocratic - or at best semi-democratic - government (with major consequences for the country's long-term economic development - especially, but not entirely, the 19th century civil wars and the post-Peron chaos that Argentina's never recovered from). To give the most recent missed opportunity, if CFK had not been brought to power in 2007, Kicillof would not have become the economic minister and perhaps someone much more capable and less radical than him would have steered Argentina's economy in the right direction.
Unfortunately, I see the USA trending the same direction as Argentina...borrowing beyond its means without thought to future harm. I see the Chinese in our position one day complaining about lazy and non-trustworthy America...and they'll be right because this is the path we are now on with the Obamabot crowd and Millenials blaming everyone else for their failure to make good decisions.
True....most countries are loaded with debt, including more than a few developed ones(try the USA for one)....
The only difference between Argentina and the US per debt, is that we print a currency by fiat(meaning no one else can, unless you plan on making fake bills) that happens to be, up to now anyway, the worlds' lingua franca currency...
If it was not the "worlds' currency", of which it is not long for, per the US Dollar I am speaking of, we would be worse off than Argentina.....put another way, folks, if the Argentine Peso was the world's currency, they could just float more bucks like we do when times get rough....they can't "float", so therefore they sink(are sunk).....
I do think that the hedge funds and bond traders who would not give Argentina a chance to renegotiate the terms should be hung.....how dare they hold an entire country's economy hostage?....bastards!
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