I gave up all social media and it made me a happier man. But alas, the dopamine fix of Twitter lured me back in. I’ve been lurking lately. I was reminded why I want to stay off. I see a dumb take and I can’t let it go. I have to argue with idiots. I have to feed the animals. But not on Twitter. I’m breaking it down here, like I’ve done before.
I’m going to come out and say it.
Most Argentine middle class I see have a better quality of life than their American counterparts.
Here is the legalese, the pregnant phrase doing a lot of work: “Most Argentine middle class I see…”
The proletariat of expats have a common gripe about the well-heeled expats: they live in a bubble. Every country has a bubble of embassy diplomats, multinational executives, upper-class natives, etc. “Most middle class I see” sounds like someone who doesn’t get out of that bubble very often. I may be wrong about this guy, but it’s hard to reconcile some of his comments with someone in touch with the average Argentine.
You have a third of the country living below the poverty line at $260 per month. And that $260 per month is not per worker, it’s per household.
I’m going to go out on a limb and assume that Wine Cowboy’s “middle class” is in fact the top quintile of society. Maybe less than a quintile. It’s common to see people (even journalists) define a Latin American country’s top quintile as “middle class.” They see income of $3800 and think, “That can’t be the upper crust of society.” But yes, that is the average income of Argentina’s top 5% of households.
It’s not just journalists and gringos who call upper-crust Latinos “middle class.” They self-identify that way. Most wealthy Americans self-identify as “middle class” too. Nobody wants to think of themselves as privileged snobs living off the backs of the poor. But in the United States, the top 5% starts at $250k per year. Do you consider that rich or middle class?
When you see the dollar mount, it doesn’t have the same effect as the percentile ranking. When most people think of a country’s “middle class,” they think of the average citizen’s lifestyle. And in Argentina, the average citizen’s household income is $632 per month. The median Argentine lifestyle is about $7600 per year.
I’ll bet dollars to donuts that if we saw the menu for the restaurant in Wine Cowboy’s picture, we’d see that the median Argentine never eats there, unless his boss invites him.
It’s not uncommon for middle class here to have cooks/cleaners and nannies for their kids. In this area, they take time off in the afternoon to spend time with family or exercise.
I lived in a country that had plenty of cooks, cleaners and nannies (a.k.a., “empleadas”), and I lived in that same country after the economic transformation, and they didn’t have so many domestic servants. I saw with my own eyes the key ingredient for having a good supply of reliable empleadas: widespread poverty.
I wrote in 2017 how difficult it was becoming to keep an empleada in Lima. As one old-money Peruvian advised me, “Give them whatever they want. Don’t let them go. Because they’ll go to the shopping malls, where they’re ‘en planilla’ and they get health insurance.”
Someone in Lima making (Argentina’s upper-middle-class average) $1520 per month only has a full-time maid if they have a great connection in the jungle to supply them with indigenous single mothers on a “cama adentro” arrangement … live-in maids. And even this guy I’m talking about has to manage a revolving door because the girls split as soon as they learn their way around the city. They go to the shopping malls.
In a healthy economy, there are fewer people in poverty and better options. Only in an unhealthy situation and lack of opportunity do women choose to be homemakers for other families. For example, in the States, illegal immigrants with few opportunities make up the supply while only the top 1% or 2% of Americans can afford them. Maybe less than 1%.
Work/life balance is much different than the US. As in, they actually have priorities outside of work.
I’d agree it’s different, but I’d dispute that it’s “much” different. What’s different is the prioritization of family. I may have an urban, upper-middle-class bias in my LatAm experience, but I don’t see Latin attitudes toward work as different as other gringos believe. There are plenty of Americans who don’t see their career as life-defining. There are plenty of Americans who are happy where they’re at, content to punch a clock and have plenty of time with family and friends.
Meanwhile, in growing Latin American countries, capital cities like Lima, Bogota and Mexico City have a real hustle culture emerging. Couples are working longer hours and having less children so they can accumulate cars and real estate, take international vacations and generally keep up with the Garcias.
Culture plays a part, but economic dynamism does too. What many people consider “American” is in fact human nature. What you see happening in the United States will happen everywhere if their economy allows it to. On a long enough timeline, every country will have obesity, suburbs and long commutes, junk food and video-game-porn addicts. No culture is above it. If they don’t have it yet, it’s because they can’t afford it.
“But their GDP is awful…” And guess how much they care.
I’d argue they care quite a lot. They just elected a president who ran on a pro-growth platform of radical change. You could say they don’t care if they had elected another peronist. Or you could argue they don’t care too much if they had elected a less radical reformer like Macri. But to elect the chainsaw guy? THEY CARE A LOT … for now, anyway.
I know as much as anybody how the economy here has had its ups and downs, but through it all I’ve seen them still enjoying life.
Wine Cowboy’s website indicates he arrived 15 years ago, which means he definitely does not know as much as anybody about the ups and downs. Specifically, he would not know as much as those who were on the ground for Argentina’s hyperinflation crisis and corralito at the turn of the century.
A minor quib, granted, but I can’t get through one sentence without finding something inaccurate.
Maybe because your bank account and your happiness don’t always correlate.
Whoops, there it is. Found one sentence.
Sobremesa is a lifestyle and Argentines have it figured out. We could learn a thing or two from them…
If that’s the point, the “take it easy,” mañana culture of Latin America is great. The slower pace of life is probably better for wellbeing and longevity. Congratulations, you graduated freshman year in South America.
But the economic takes here are a little dim.
I don’t know why people have to be irrational boosters and claim there’s some noble way of life in Latin America, and deny the reality of the pyramid. Compared to our countries, these are poor, backward societies. For just $3800 per month, you can waltz into the top 5% and lord it over a country where the average is $632. That’s the clear-eyed reality. Save the romance for the naive 18-year-olds doing gap years.
And as happy as the mañana culture seems to you in Gringolandia, it’s probably a different calculus for them. The first serious data to look at is the World Happiness Report. The latest index listed Argentina at #48, 25 spots below the United States and also trailing Mexico, Uruguay, El Salvador, Chile, Panama, Guatemala, Nicaragua and Brazil in Latin America.
But self-reported data can be deceptive. I remember a Scandinavian telling me the key to happiness is low expectations. I remember when Colombia took second, which everybody attributed to its emerging from narcoterrorism and armed conflict. In this latest ranking, El Salvador is #33, which is clearly due to the improvement in security.
The true test of happiness would be a feet vote. We could never do this, but imagine you could offer a green card to all those “middle class” Argentines in the upper quintile. If they accept, they have to live in the United States for a decade. Then do the same with Americans in the upper quintile: permanent residence in Argentina but they have to do a decade. They vote with their feet.
Which country gains more people proportionally? You already know. That’s why Argentines have to ask permission to visit the States, while Americans can just show up unannounced.
What Wine Cowboy and all the idiots agreeing with his tweet probably feel is that if you make about $3000 per month, and you can do that anywhere in the world (sorry, tradesmen), then you’ll have a better life in Argentina than in the U.S.
I’d have to yield that point. Again, that’s why you have to be on Twitter. Where else do you get such insight?
I visited Argentina 30 years ago and I liked it and I would consider going back to live there but Colombia has some advantages, too:
1 – It’s closer to the US (cheaper, shorter flights)
2 – I think the women are hotter, although Argentina also has beautiful women
3 – I think the women are more desperate
4 – I think the weather is better in Colombia, it basically has the same weather all year
Argentina has some advantages of its own:
1 – There’s less violence and crime
2 – A slightly lower cost of living according to Google
3 – There are almost no Blacks in Argentina – Wait, I didn’t say that. You can’t say that.
If I go expat I would probably choose Colombia. The closeness and the women thing tips it for me. And actually there are some beautiful Black women in Colombia, but I generally prefer the trigueña look. That’s what a woman working at a marriage agency in Colombia 20+ years ago told me after I gave her a list of the women that I wanted to meet from her notebook. Those were the “good old days”. The word “trigueña” comes from the word “trigo” which means “wheat” in English so it basically means someone with skin the color of wheat. To me it means a dark tan skin color but it’s the long straight black hair that attracts me and the dark skin.
I would take issue with “[Colombian] women are more desperate.” Thirty years ago, no doubt. But Argentina’s economy has fallen a long way in that time, while Colombia has done well. I would call it a wash. If women in Colombia are marginally more desperate today, I’d attribute that to how many Venezuelans the country has absorbed. Argentina, on the other hand, has taken in among the fewest on the continent.
This graphic says a lot.
That is a shocking graphic, but a lot of it has to do with proximity. Argentina gets a lot fewer Venezuelans because it is a much longer walk and mostly through dense jungle. I went to Colombia with an American friend in 2002 and we went to a nice mall and after looking aroun he said “These women aren’t desperate to go to the US because they can have a good life here.” But the women still seem to be a lot easier to engage (at whatever level that means) than in the US or I think even Argentina, but I haven’t spent as much time in Argentina. As a result I think an old guy’s sugar daddy money will go a lot farther (or is that further) in Colombia than in the US.
Hard to square the distance argument with Chile’s place in the rankings, and its mere 20 million in population. Also hard to square with Venezuelan neighbor Brazil, with a population of 200 million, taking just a small fraction of what Colombia or even Peru have absorbed.
Obviously language plays some role, as does distance, but not as much as economic strength.
The Chile number is a little surprising, but the Brazil number doesn’t surprise me as much because most of the areas in Brazil near Venezuela are smaller cities and jungle, I think. Correct me if I’m wrong but I think about 75% of Brazil’s population is on their Atlantic coast. Those population zones are far from Venezuela and it seems that what Venezuelans want are cities where they can find a job or at least beg for money.
I just Googled the distance by car from Caracas to Arica, the entry point into Chile from Peru. I was going to compare it to the distance from Caracas to Recife, but I didn’t get that far. The quickest way to Chile from Venezuela is through Brazil. It saves 14 hours.
That’s true. I don’t know what the answer is unless maybe it’s the language difference.
I’ve been reading your blog a while. Latin America has changed A LOT since you were here. 3K p/month is middle class these days, I think just to get temporary residency in Mexico today you have to prove 3500 or 4K P/month. Even the Mexicans consider gringos under 3.5-4k p/month broke & don’t want them. That guy isn’t lying when he says 3k p/month is middle class & we all know you can’t trust any economic data here. It’s not 2010 anymore.
Everyone with $$$$ is moving rural now in Latin America, same thing as in the US. In Argentina if you go to Patagonia that’s where the $$$$$$ is, same as in Chile. All the best hotels, villas, mansions, etc are around Bariloche, Puerto Varas, Angostura, etc. That’s where all the ex presidents, oligarchs, etc live. Same thing is happening in Costa Rica, Brazil, Uruguay, etc. All the cities we used to hang in are quickly turning into large slums, open air drug dens, etc. The drugs are hitting LatAm very hard right now.
Today, in general, Latin America is more expensive than the US. A single family home built to international standards (no tin roof & where you can actually flush toilet paper) will cost more anywhere in Latin America than it will except for the most expensive parts of the US, the cars, electronics, etc is more expensive, unless you want to live off bananas & chicken – the majority of food is more expensive.
The difference is living in poverty is generally illegal in the US, you can’t rent out a shitty unplanned apartment building, in Latin America you can. 3000 p/month goes much farther in Latin America, 10K p/month most certainly does not.