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| The South America Forum :: Ask us a Question! |
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South America :: Need to know about the Argentinean economy? Want to know what are the best parts of the carnival in Rio? Thinking of visiting Macchu Picchu? Here is the place to discuss issues of interest to South Americans, and inquire about tourist destinations in South America. Ask us a Question!
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| im planning on taking a tripe to canada soon, and after that |
Posted by OGIONIK on March, 17. :: 21 Comments
I will be on my way all the way through south america.
thats the plan anyways.
It will be my first time leaving the country, except one time in canada.
What are some really basic things i should know?
-i will be using a motorcycle.
-i want to see everything on the way down
-i can speak spanish so-so. by the time i leave i will be fluent.
-i want to get a grasp of both ancient and current cultures in south america.
give me some advice! this is the first time in my life i've felt secure enough to actually get joy from travelling.
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| Real Estate In Chile |
Posted by Bravado on November, 21. :: 0 Comments
Hello,
I'm considering a move to Algarrobo Chile. Is there anyone registered here who could guide me to a good real estate agent, or give me some advice regarding areas where housing is close to North American standards?
Would appreciate any help.
Robert
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| Inflation's reappearance worries South Americans |
Posted by BumbleBeeBoogie on November, 17. :: 0 Comments
Inflation's reappearance worries South Americans
By Jack Chang | McClatchy Newspapers
Posted on Friday, November 16, 2007
LA MATANZA, Argentina — Miguel Mendez's wages as a restaurant cook haven't risen much over the past year, but the price of potatoes where he shops has doubled. Prices also have skyrocketed for tomatoes, apple cider, sweet bread and other foods.
"We're feeling it at home," said Mendez, who lives in this middle-class city outside the Argentine capital, Buenos Aires. "We spend more money now for less."
In South America, the age-old curse of inflation is making a comeback.
Prices in Argentina and Venezuela, which have seen robust economic growth over the past four years, have risen by nearly 20 percent this year, economists estimate. For Argentina, that's the highest rate since 2003, when the country was wrestling with an economic crisis. For Venezuela, the rate is the highest since 2004, when the country was emerging from a deep recession.
Prices are surging by the highest rate in years in other countries too. In Bolivia, inflation is expected to pass 11 percent, the highest in a decade. Prices in Uruguay have risen by 9 percent, the highest since 2004. Inflation rates have hit about 7 percent in Chile and Paraguay, also recent highs.
Those rates are still only a fraction of the inflation that gripped South America in the 1980s, when annual rates were so great that Bolivians started weighing their money instead of counting it and Argentina kept lopping zeros off its currency and changing its name. Not all countries are seeing the increase, either: Brazil's inflation is down, thanks largely to government policies on slowing economic growth.
But economists worry that some countries could lose control if inflation rates top 20 percent. Adding to the problem, inflation in nearly every country on the continent is outpacing economic growth.
"It's very hard to have consistently high inflation without seeing it spiraling out of control," said Dan Kerner, an economist at the U.S.-based consulting firm the Eurasia Group. "If these imbalances continue, people will fall behind."
The return of inflation is a byproduct of prosperity. South American countries that export soy, petroleum and other commodities have enjoyed billions of dollars in new revenues as countries such as China and India grow at double-digit rates.
Argentina has racked up a $7.2 billion trade surplus this year, while Bolivia accumulated a trade surplus of $670 million from January to July.
Such trade has given the region its longest period of sustained economic growth in three decades. As a result, the number of poor Latin Americans dropped below 200 million for the first time in 15 years, a U.N. commission reported this week.
The flip side, however, is that prices have risen. In Argentina, the price of basic household foods rose by more than 11 percent in the first two weeks of November, according to the research group Equis.
Protests have become common in some countries. Bolivian drivers blocked roads this week to protest inflation and a shortage of diesel fuel.
Price controls on basic foods in Venezuela have led to shortages and, in some cases, long lines outside markets.
Adding to the problem are industries, particularly energy companies, that haven't expanded fast enough to meet demand. That's led to shortages that have contributed to higher prices, said Juan Luis Bour, chief economist at the Argentine research group the Latin American Economic Investigations Foundation.
He and other economists said that governments needed to cool economic growth and cut spending to halt inflation. Rising inflation threatens to eat into people's economic gains and derail growth, he said.
"If you have inflation of 20 percent, you need to act today with maximum force," he said. "If you don't do anything today, it'll get even harder to fix the problem later."
But few countries have been willing to rein in growth.
"Many governments really see inflation as a tolerable tradeoff for growth," said Mark Weisbrot, co-director of the U.S.-based Center for Economic and Policy Research. "What governments will try very hard not to do is crash economies to bring down inflation."
In Argentina, the government rejects economists' inflation estimates and insists that prices are rising at an annual rate of only about 8.4 percent. The country is continuing to spur economic growth by raising public-sector wages and spurring exports while instituting price controls on everything from natural gas to produce.
Argentina's president-elect, first lady Sen. Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, has proposed building a "social pact" between businesses and workers to rein in wage increases and rising prices, a strategy that's inspired more doubt than hope.
"I get the impression Argentina will take half-measures and do it all too late," Bour said.
Bolivia's government has responded by asking people to eat more price-stable foods such as chicken and eggs rather than beef and rice.
Inflation probably will get worse before it gets better, especially in oil-rich Venezuela, where prices are expected to rise by more than 20 percent next year, said Jose Guerra, a former chief of economic research at Venezuela's Central Bank.
With billions of petroleum dollars funding Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez's social programs, more money will pour into the economy and push prices upward, he said. The country's heavily overvalued currency also is stifling domestic production.
"We're entering a dangerous area now," Guerra said. "We've seen good economic growth, but that's threatened."
Edit [Moderator]: Moved from International News to South America.
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| More women head Latin American households |
Posted by BumbleBeeBoogie on October, 22. :: 2 Comments
McClatchy Washington Bureau
More women head Latin American households
Jack Chang | McClatchy Newspapers
October 18, 2007
SAN GABRIEL, Chile — At 4 p.m. sharp on a chilly October afternoon, more than a dozen women walked onto the main road of this tiny Andean town and launched a protest that backed up traffic for blocks.
The women wanted their local government to build more sewer lines, and they'd taken it upon themselves to force the issue. Many of them were single mothers, separated or divorced from their husbands. Those who were still married were living alone while their spouses worked hundreds of miles away in northern Chile.
“There are no men left in this town,” said Julia Severino, 24, who manned the blockade with her young son. “So we women, we’re taking matters into our hands.”
The women of San Gabriel have plenty of company in Latin America.
Across the region, a major social shift is under way as traditional, two-parent households led by men give way to growing numbers of families run by women, many of them single mothers.
More women are completing their educations, earning their own incomes and reducing their dependence on male breadwinners. They're also having fewer children.
The change has overturned age-old traditions in a region where the male-headed household, along with the extended family, has long been considered the center of society.
“We’ve moved past the generation where the woman is expected to stay at home,” said Maria Jose Lubertino, a former legislator in Argentina who now leads that country’s anti-discrimination institute. “Family structures are different, and women are extending their influence.”
In Chile, about 32 percent of households were led by women in 2002, in most cases by single mothers, according to the government’s most recent figures. That’s nearly a 25 percent jump from a decade ago.
During the same period, the percentage of women who were working grew from 32 percent to 42 percent.
The change has been even more dramatic in other countries. In Brazil, the number of households headed by women — 29 percent of all families — soared by 79 percent between 1996 and 2006. About 18 percent of U.S. households are headed by women.
That shift, along with a boom in divorces and separations, worries many who believe the decline in traditional families will fuel everything from rising juvenile crime to domestic violence.
In the poorest neighborhoods of the northeastern Brazilian city of Salvador, the sight of men heading households is quickly becoming a thing of the past, said Jussara Souza, a police chief in a slum there.
“This is the new reality,” Souza said. “The majority of the families are separated, with the woman supporting the children.
More women are working, and they’re independent, and they’re not putting up with aggression from men.
“But I see it as a negative trend for the families and for the raising of children and for the women, who have to work even harder now to take care of their children.”
Brazil’s out-of-control street violence goes a long way toward explaining the absence of men, according to a study by Gary Barker, the head of an anti-violence community group in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
His study, based on 2000 Brazilian census figures, found that there were 200,000 fewer men than women between the ages of 15 and 29 in Brazil, with the gap expected to grow to 6 million fewer men by 2050. Higher rates of homicides, suicides and accidents among men explained the gap, the study found.
In Chile, where violence rates are lower, many men have left their families to work in mines and agriculture elsewhere in the country.
In Puente Alto, one of the poorest suburbs of the capital of Santiago, there were 11,000 fewer men than women in 2002, out of a total of 490,000 people, census figures showed. On the other hand, many mining towns in northern Chile have only men.
Argentine community organizer Monica Carranza called the disappearance of men from many neighborhoods a tragedy that's left thousands of women and children vulnerable. About 18 percent of Argentine women were single mothers in 2001, according to the latest census figures.
Many children are getting involved in drugs and crime near the shelters Carranza runs on the periphery of the Argentine capital of Buenos Aires. A recent study by a coalition of anti-drug neighborhood groups found that the use of “paco,” a toxic side-product of cocaine, had grown by five times over the past three years in the city.
“Where are the families?” Carranza asked. “It’s just women and children alone. People tell me all the time, ‘There are no more men.’ ”
Yet in this new landscape some resourceful women are thriving. Chilean women's monthly wages grew by 31 percent from 1995 to 2005, while men's monthly wages grew by only 4 percent, census data show. Women earned 79 percent of men's wages in 2005.
Raquel Cavello, a Chilean seamstress, raised her two children alone after her husband left more than a decade ago.
Cavello said she had no work experience but managed to survive with the help of other poor women, many of them also single mothers, in the encampment she lived in on the outskirts of Santiago.
“We had a very important role in the camp,” the 49-year-old said. “We made and sold food to support the community, we cooked for everybody, we guarded the camp at night. We had the same role as the men, maybe an even bigger role.”
For Karen Poniachik, Chile’s first female mining minister, staying single was a natural choice for a self-confessed workaholic.
The 42-year-old heads one of Chile’s most important ministries, which oversees an industry that generates 40 percent of the country’s taxes and 65 percent of its exports. She also heads the boards of Chile’s national copper, mining and energy companies.
“In my case, I’m single and I don’t have a baby, and it’s easier for me to stay long hours here,” Poniachik said. “I like what I’m doing and I like my job.”
Chile’s government has tried to help working families by building hundreds of day care centers and pushing new laws promoting gender equality in the workplace, said Laura Albornoz Pollmann, who heads Chile’s national women’s service.
Some opposition leaders have accused such policies of fueling the decline in traditional families, but Albornoz Pollmann framed the issue as one of equal rights.
“There’s been a tremendous advance in respect to our commitment to the next generation and also to women who need to go out and look for work,” she said.
Margarita Martins, who took part in the protest in San Gabriel, said she didn’t regret staying single after separating from her husband 25 years ago.
For one thing, it gave her more time to get involved in her community and fill the political vacuum left by the town’s absent men.
That was evident at the blockade, where she busily organized her fellow protesters and negotiated with police. After the women left the road, Martins sat down with town officials and pressed her demands.
“That’s how things work these days,” Martins said. “If women are going to get anything done, we need to do it on our own.”
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