@@Leonardohummel Es imposible que los extranjeros puedan entender aunque sea el 1% de lo que está pasando. Es una locura tener que explicarles algo así. 🤣
As an argentinean, this is a surprisingly good explanation of the economical situation in Argentina. It's a dumpsterfire. Just one thing, the "shady man" is sometimes just a perfectly regulated company like Western Union. Things are funky over here. If by funky you mean a dumpsterfire.
Honestly I would just try and fix it by abolishing the domestic currency entirely and just using the U.S. Dollar or Euros or British Pounds or some other currency that is super stable and has decent value.
I know this is a joke but fr it's nothing like that. Most Argentinians are of Italian or Spanish descent, I'm talking like maybe 80% has a grandparent or great grandparent of those nationalities. It's true we received Nazis escapees but argentina is by no means a racist country.
As a German I am fairly disappointed that it doesn't seem to work anymore. Edit: But I am absolutely thrilled that the video features Germanys most famous RUclips-lawyer, "Christian Solmecke von der Kölner Medienrechtskanzlei Wilde Beuger und Solmecke".
Argentinean here. Another not-so-fun fact is that the current administration has tried to basically do a copy-paste of the "solution" that they applied to tourists. Basically this means that there are currently FIFTEEN (!!!) different exchange rates PER CURRENCY. i.e. the "official", the black market one (which is called "blue"), one for agriculture, one for Argentineans who travelled to the football World Cup (this is not a joke, Google it), and so on. One more thing: Given it has big effects on the prices of everyday items, pretty much everyone in the country is aware of the black market exchange rate for the Peso-USD. It might seem weird, but it gets published basically everywhere, from websites to major news outlets, TV channels, etc.
@@matiaswagner9810 hahaha si, pero si cambias en Palermo el precio no cambia más de 2 pesos y no esperas nada. Además hay demasiadas casas de cambio que es más seguro que los chorros de Florida
@@fdolarhyde Si estuviera viviendo en el extranjero y alguien me explicase la secuencia de hablar con un arbolito para después ir a una cueva, mi imaginación sería mucho más turbia que la descripción del video 😂
Amo a su país. Soy yanqui y vivía en Argentina por cuatro años. Fui arbolito por los últimos dos años después de que CFK cerró la convertibilidad de pesos. Me cagué de risa cuando descubrí la publicación del precio de “dólar blue” por todos lados y más cuando mis amigos empezaban a pedirme por la venta de dólares. Así empezaba mi “carrera clandestina”. Espero que la situación económica mejore para un país tan hermoso. (Sorry for my Spanish errors, I’m not as fluent as I once was.)
@@tomasxfrancofun fact existe un plugin para navegador q te muestra el precio de los juegos + el 75% de impuestos q se nos carga, steamcito se llama por si no sabian ☝️🤓
As a Lebanese person, I knew the answer to the question before you even finished it. With our current inflation that has been going on since the early Covid days, and since foreign online stores were unaware of the exchange rate fluctuations, some of us were able to take advantage of this loophole before the stores figured it out and stopped allowing us to pay in Lebanese Pounds. A friend of mine once bought a $1500 camera online for the equivalent of $300.
The president that brought in a truly brilliant economist to peg the peso to the dollar, and fixed inflation in the 90s is the same guy that later didn't want to lose the elections, so he fired that guy and tried to keep the lie that 1 peso was worth 1 dollar alive by any means possible, and all of the later mess kind of comes straight from that. That guy's name was Menem. Sounds familiar? Yeah, his family was from Lebanon.
yeah same here we have alot of currency inflation before we switched to euro but I don’t care about the inflation rate anymore, because you’re truly priceless to me!😫
As an Argentinian I am amazed how well you explained this monster problem. Foreigners usually don´t believe/fully understand that this is the reality and not a prank show.
As an argentine, everytime a foreigner asks how much does X cost in your country, my general answer is "I don't know, but i can tell you how much it cost two months ago..."
How is Argentina still with any money f I were in charge, the next time people mass trade their domestic for something else, I’d formally adopt whatever is most common
@@QuarioQuario54321one of the presidential candidates basically starts on this very platform. If everyone is hoarding dollars, why not just ditch the peso, lol. The problem is it creates a very clear winning group of people and those are generally the moneychangers and their clients, who are still considered criminals :) Src: I'm no Argentine, I'm Polish, but we had this exact situation 30 years ago, but it didn't last for 50 years in a row.
Surprisingly the dollar black market in Argentina looks quite formal, is not like buying to a shady guy on the street, is buying to a shady guy on a regular office
They are not shady! They are an integral part of the economy. Just because it is illegal it doesn't mean people are some shady gangster. The black market IS an important part of making the economy work in these cases. Like the market black during the war times or the black market of any communist country.
Los "arbolitos" son gente normal con dolares que venden, suelen ser agradables, no son como vendedores de drogas o algo asi jajaja no tenes que tenerles miedo a los primeros
Argentinian here, pretty accurate description. In fact the thing mentioned about the 2001 crisis was even worse: it wasn't that you can convert only 250 ARS to USD per week, it was that you was only allowed to withdraw just 250 ARS from the bank each week (there was no limit for transfers or paying with debit cards, only cash withdrawals). That lasted for a few weeks on December 2001 before the government collapsed and the ARS was de-pegged to the dollar.
@@QuarioQuario54321thars the proposal of one of the candidates However its a bad idea. It will basically extremely limit the ammount of currency in cirvulation since using a foreign coin is much more expensive than using local currency. Not to mention that it will basically permanently tie us to the US sphere of influence and limit the ammount of ecobomic decisions you can take
@@antoniosoares9273 sure, the leadership is stupid. But not having economic independence basically kills your chances to try to do anything when theres a problem that needs to be fixed without getting into more debt Es el uno a uno de nuevo. Nos vamos a endeudar y vamos a tener de nuevo un colapso economico
Actually we have: Official Dollar Blue Dollar: Black market rate MEP Dollar: Rate used in the Argentinian sovereign bonds CCL Dollar: Rate used in the stock exchange Solidarity dollar (Official + 30% tax): This is the rate you have if you are given permission to buy dollars on the banks Credit/Debit Card dollar (Official + 30% PAIS tax + 45% income tax in advance + 25% wealth tax in advance): made to decrease use of dollars in online shopping, suscriptions and tourism abroad. You can fight for a refund of the income tax though. Soybean dollar: A temporary rate to try and stimulate agrarian exports Electronic dollar: A better rate given to people that are paid in dollars to keep them in the financial system Tourist dollar: The one in the video And i'm probably forgetting about other ones too
5:11 As a German, I had to pause the video at that point because I couldn't see it anymore through the tears from laughing 😂 12/10 pronunciation 👌 Didn't know Sam's mother tongue was German xD
That's the reason why Brazilians are travelling a lot more to Argentina these days. Basically anything you pay using an international credit card (Mastercard or Visa) is about 40% off compared to the official exchange rate. On top of that, tourists are exempt from VAT (aka IVA) in hotels. Even duty free items which are historically very expensive when bought in Argentina (it actually still is, if you pay in USD) are very cheap when paying using an international credit card (or Argentinian pesos).
Eu estava me perguntando se os brasileiros poderiam se beneficiar disso de algum jeito (ganhar 40% de desconto nas costas do Estado argentino seria muito satisfatório). Acho que, em compras online, um amigo meu alegou que comprava os jogos da Nintendo na loja virtual argentina pq compensava mais.
That was my question. If using the exchange rate loophole saves you 40%, but the item is marked up 200% or 300%, then is it really still a deal, even without having to pay VAT?
Same for Chile. People are crossing the border all the time to buy groceries in Mendoza, Cordoba, Bariloche, Neuquen,etc., because it's way cheaper than here with the whole exchange rate craziness. The borders somewhat close during winter but I'm sure when spring comes the crossings will skyrocket again
You know it's bad when Brazil is seen as the light of stability in your region Wish I had the means to travel to Argentina rn, like my cousin did in February. I just wish more that it wasn't in this situation
Argentine here. I have only two things to say about this video: 1- yes, this does not surprise me in the least; 2- everything explained here is accurate, yet most of the population somehow believes everything wrong with our economy is somehow _everyone else's fault but ours._ Shady politicians everywhere must have been gawking in admiration at our guys for the last 100 years or so lol
@@justarandomgothamite5466 whoever their party leadership tells them. Sorry for the wall of text btw lol. Alternatively: - Big land owners: soy "farmers" only at a massive scale, which bring in a ton of money on exports and are taxed to oblivion - they can levy those taxes on them only if the public enables them to dl so, hence the demonization. The argument is they hold so much land and so much power, they get rich by exploiting their workers (basic ass class warfare speech). - The IMF: basically the only guys willing to lend the government any money at this point, with interest rates way higher than for the vast majority of countries in the region because, well, that's what money lending is like when you're considered to be a high risk for defaulting on your loans lol. Of course, the spiel goes along the lines of "they lend us money at loan shark rates while attempting to make us change our government policies and general ideology to make us fall under empire rule!". In reality what they usually lecture us for is our ridiculous, unsustainable amounts of public spending, and general measures that would make it more plausible for us to be able to pay back that money. - The news media: anyone that doesn't sing their tune is against them and wants to overthrow them. This one is a big hit in many places, not just us. - The judicial system: _"the 'judiciary party' keeps accusing our main leaders of corruption and money laundering because they want to make us look bad! They're alligned with the opposition, they themselves are corrupt"_ *proceed to foster a sort of party-adjacent organization WITHIN THE JUDICIAL SYSTEM, which is EXACTLY what they accuse the opposition of doing, and is 100% illegal. Bear in mind this party-adjacent thing is not some sort of conspiracy theory thing, they're extremely vocal about it, going to rallies with their own banners and shit. It's mental. Of course those guys _do_ push prosecutions that are 99% of times somewhere between laughable and outright enragingly corrupt - The US: nothing to add, the US being the big bad empire that wants our government to stop their miraculous public spending programs that enable the poor to scrape a living... If you buy into that, which you should be really dumb to considering those programs basically keep those people hostage and that's precisely why they will never take the steps necessary to phase them out. Phasing those programs out would require a bunch of other reforms previously, mainly creating conditions that would make it possible for new jobs to be needed, which those people could eventually fill.
@@justarandomgothamite5466 oh, I forgot one of the most hilarious ones: there were a few months they were blaming inflation on the Ukranian war. Bear in mind we're _competitors_ with both Ukraine and Russia on agricultural exports; the war should have *benefitted* us. Our main economic ties by far at this point are with Brazil, which is right next to us, and China. Brazil doesn't give a flying fuck about the war, and China directly benefitted from it and will keep on doing so for decades.
I was able to capitalize off that loophole but didnt overdo it, however there were people paying their rent in pesos or just sending paypal money back and forth with their friends, essentially creating unlimited money. Was a very fun 3 days while it lasted
I was born and raised in Chile, neighboring Argentina, and I remember news of like, people filling their tires with US Dollars to smuggle money to Argentina. That, and how it was common knowledge that you could always buy more stuff with the same amount of money in Argentina.
There are videos of people filling tires with tires to smuggle tires to argentina because it was too expensive to import the tires legally (because of taxes). They somehow managed to get 4 tires per tire which means you get more tire out of your tire. The video is amaizing. You say "no way they are pulling ANOTHER TIRE OUT" and then they stick in a cross wrench and take out another tire.
As an economist & Argentinian, this video is a nice quick summary about how the macroeconomic instability of our country generates certain other effects as curious as the mentioned (many of them are quite funny actually).
LMFAO, (a friend of mine) tried prepaying 30K$ of tuition ahead of time in pesos and he claims it may ir may not have worked for a while but eventually the oopsie was undone
Having just spent a couple months in Argentina, just have to say this is mostly right, but there's technically 3 different exchange rates right now if you're a tourist in Argentina. There's the regular official rate (as on xe etc) which you can get away without using. The blue dollar rate which you get from exchanging US dollars with a guy on a street corner (it's really not all that shady tbh) which is around 490 pesos to the $ as Sam mentions in the video. And then there's the credit card rate or MEP rate which is somewhere in between but not quite as good as the blue dollar cash rate. Plus you can just transfer $ with Western Union or someone and then go and change it up at the blue dollar rate on the street corner. Either way, it's crazy cheap to buy stuff in Argentina right now but you can't help but feel sorry for the locals who just see their money become less valuable by the day. :(
Yeah, it's insane. And there's actually even more than three exchange rates, there's the "soy dollar" for example, and during the World Cup (⭐⭐⭐) there even was a "Qatar dollar" lol We make fun of it because otherwise we'd be crying 😂
True, but most people cant get "Coldplay dollar" (yes, named after the band) or "soy dollar", or "netflix dollar" those are different rates that some people with influence gets from the government or get via an order from a court of justice or for some other reason. The rest of the official rates depends on what taxes the government decides to apply to your credit card expenditures.
What is also amazing is the shear number of exchange rates we have. The official exchange is ~265, BUT If an Argentine buys something from abroad, is charged a 75% extra in taxes (aka "card dollar"). If he buys more than 300usd in a month, the excess is charged an aditional 35% (tourist dollar). If you pay for something like spotify, or amazon prime, its 74%, total (Netflix dollar). If you are a farmer selling soybeans, you were paid 300 (soy dollar). Same for wine and olives. If a foreign artist gives a show in Argentina, is paid a bit extra (Coldplay dollar). If you sell a service abroad, ie, as a free lancer, you are paid at the official exchange rate, but 20% is given to you in actual dollars (the final result is called techno dollar). Now, if you live here, you pay day to day things in pesos, you make savings in dollars or euros, and you buy a car or a house in dollars. But beware: if you sell something to us, we may pay you in yuans 😂
My favorite part is that he didn't even bother to try to pronounce the number in German xD Too bad, I would have loved to hear Sam say zweitausendsiebenhundertsechsundneunzig xD
Egypt is facing a similar USD exchange rate issue, where the official exchange rate is 30 EGP per 1 USD, where it is lurking around 37 in the black market, but the issue is that the bank does NOT let anyone exchange at that official rate. You are legally able to, but only if you are traveling abroad (you need to provide paperwork to prove that) or you have a USD account. Here's the thing, the tellers will tell you "sorry, we don't have USDs" most of the time unless you are very lucky. They will happily though convert your USDs to EGPs at that low rate, but they will not do the reverse. And, you will be called names if you go to the black market for this, first of them is "unpatriotic" and sometimes "treason". Imagine how you are being forced to deal with the black market because the banks simply don't allow USD exchange, but at the same time you are a traitor. How fun this is..
German here. This sounds crazy, but it actually worked. You didn’t mention the craziest thing: you could PayPal your friends money and pay by cc. Literally printing money. Send them 1000€, 600€ get deducted from your account. Was fixed pretty quickly but i assume some made a pretty penny with that.
And who paid for that? Sadly the working middle clases of Argentina, i know because i'm one of them. No hard feelings tho, i'd have done the same, it's "free" money after all
@@pibenando1 as a middle class form argentina, yes we are going to pay it, but still our politicians are to blame not the germans, which is a quite odd thing to say "not blame the germans" went you can point out so many problems to the germans lol
Finacial loopholes are always the most fascinating, since the business class literally have a team of people making sure they make max profit, so when these type of exploits go thru, I chuckle.
Pretty good explanation! As Argentine, I'd like to add that the "blue dollar" exchange rate (or black market rate) is not the only one that currently exists. We have tens of different exchange rates (some with funny names) like "Coldplay dollar", "Qatar dollar", "Stock exchange dollar", "Solidary dollar", "Soy dollar", "Crypto dollar", etc.
I’m randomly in Argentina right now and this videos timing is crazy because I looked at my statement and realized I spent half the amount of money that I actually thought I did
Don’t use a credit card, you can get more ARS if you exchange your cash at an illegal exchange office. If you don’t have cash, use western union. The credit card exchange rate is 460/USD and the WU/Illegal rate is closer to 500/USD. Enjoy your stay and thanks for bringing in foreign currency, we desperately need it.
@@incarteminerYT Don't you realize that currency is just printed papers? If a tourist buys goods from you in Argentina below typical market prices, then each such purchase deepens the poverty of Argentina. What you need is forward thinking, a balanced state budget and a free market
5:19 Sam you missed the German reading for the number there, but I really don't get why, you would just have to say zweitausendsiebenhundertsechsundneunzig, easy peasy xD
i spent a bit of time in Argentina, and literally no one got their pesos from the Argentine bank. We all exchange our dollars for pesos on the "Black Market". But id say black market is a bit of a strong word for the establishments that provided the exchanging services. it more of a slightly grey white, if you catch my drift. the bank rate or "Formal Rate" over inflated the cost of a peso.
In reality, it's perfectly legal, and not a black market at all. The government says it's a black market, the government says it's illegal, but any decree saying it's illegal is unconstitutional.
Chilean here, some places in argentina had restrict foreigners from buying at supermarkets because it became so stupidly cheap to go to argentina and buy stuff there. Also, i can go and eat at a expensive restaurant in argentina with my family (300km drive) for less than what it would cost to eat at normal restaurant in chile.
Talked about this with my lawyer. He said there's about a 60-70% chance I could keep it in his opinion, but it'd put me in a terrible standing with my bank, which issued my credit card and holds my loans and Paypal, which I use for 95% of my private AND mostly business purchases. So I didn't do it. Im very happy for everyone who did, and got away with it. If you had the resources and necessary fervor it looked like a great deal.
As someone living next to Argentina (Paraguay), it was always common knowledge since I was born how the Argentinians are obsessed with the US Dollar and all the exchange rates and how you could always take advantage of that. For example, we would convert our national currency (Guarani) to US Dollars freely in any of the exchange shops in our city, as our currency is not controlled and the exchange rate is a free market thing, and then cross the border to Argentina where we were suddenly millionaires as Argentinians were DESPERATE for Dollar and would pay 3 or 4 times more. With all the millions of Pesos we had we would then spend it all on the Goverment-subsidized products like foodstuff and gas as it was also heavily artificially controlled and you could fill your gas tank for a 10th of the normal cost. It was a circus at the gas station where you would see kilometers of foreign-owned cars in line waiting their turn to get that almost free petrol and you could only laugh at the disparity of the state controlled economy on one side and free capitalism on the other on display in your face.
I'm from Brazil and I'm going to Argentina next week and is just like you said, everything is about 40% off. And the shady guy that exchange money is literally any Argentinian / store
The first time I was in Argentina when I came back to the U.S. i went to a currency exchange to convert my pesos back to dollars and was told, nope. We don't do that. Pesos are worthless. The last time I was in Argentina I handed over all my leftover pesos to the taxi driver that took me to the airport for my flight home. He was a happy man. I think he got the equivalent of about $50-$100 U.S. dollars as a tip. No sense in bringing them home with me.
How strange Germany taking advantage of a vulnerable country, and you are proud of it ? Seems WW2 haven’t though anything to your people of how fucking shitty and low Germans can get. Absolutely disgusting
I did some work in Argentina in 1983, and the situation was similar, except for the credit card part. There was the official exchange rate at a bank and then a much better rate on the street corner, so that has been an ongoing issue. It was also when they were changing from pesos to “pesos Argentinos”, with 10,000 pesos = 1 peso Argentino. The old notes of 1,000,000 pesos and new notes of 100 pesos Argentinos were the same value and around US$4 on the street.
As a German, I sadly didn't got the memo. I am even subscribed to the channel that is shown in the end (well known law channel in Germany, mostly for digital rights) and still missed it.
Ich hatte den deal auf mydealz gesehen als der gepostet wurde, aber da stand das man damit xbox gift cards 40% günstiger kriegen kann, deswegen hatte ich den nicht weiter beachtet, weil ich keine xbox habe, hätte ich den deal mal gründlicher angeguckt, bzw. den und die Kommentare besser verfolgt.
Great video! I've always been extremely interested in Argentina and their economy and I feel like this explains it very well. Hopefully I will move down there for a little bit in the coming years for work!
As a german who watched the video shown at 5:35 the beginning of this video was still informative. And I didn't knew this was still possible, I thought they fixed all loopholes even before that video came out
It’s hilarious to me how a foreigner can understand and explain our country’s economic situation perfectly and yet some people in Argentina would argue to death that there still one and only exchange rate 🥴
@@tuchi8519 so you never encountered one of those specimens that claim that the parallel exchange rate is illegal and therefore not recognized by them? Lucky you!
En realidad no existen más que 3 cotizaciones primarias, legales (oficial, MEP y CCL) y luego según los impuestos que se apliquen, otros valores finales de cotización. Pero no existen todas esas cotizaciones que se piensan que hay. Los impuestos no son cotizaciones independientes, per se. Por supuesto que además hay una cotización "blue", que tiene un valor de referencia, pero no una cotización oficial. Cada uno le pone el precio que quiere.
Fun fact, Steam worked like this for a very long time. The site had prices in pesos but seems it wasn't updating the value properly, and it was getting ridiculously cheap (not including discounts). Some time ago they kind of fixed that, at least for major titles
It usually wasn't an error, it was regional pricing for multiple reasons (hidden 80% tax argentinians pay for foreign transactions, and low relative purchasing power to name 2) but foreign people exploiting it lead to it being nerfed.
As an argentinean, this is almost everything right, is funny and sad at the same time. The only thing I would correct is that the prices of the dollar in the black market, the "blue dollar", is accesible to everyone and it's even on the newspapers websites for you to check depending where city you are at. And there's more than ten types of dollar prices depending on what and how much of them you're spending.🤣
Very accurate description of my country's economy. However, during the 2001 crisis, after the economy collapse, not only you weren't allowed to withdraw money, but all savings in dollars were automatically converted into pesos, which was now 1/3 of the dollar value. Right after that caos in the city spread out like wildfire.
In Argentina we have a phone app that shows the 10+ different USD to ARS exchange rates. Because it’s not the same exchange rate for those who spend money abroad with a credit card, than for those who also spend with a credit card, but spend more than USD 300 in a month.
As a German who got this info pretty quick I decided to not use this loopwhole because I knew that it would damage Argentina even more and I love this country and I got a lot of friends there and people I really care about.
Argentinian here: The situation is quite the dumpster fire, and my dad can confirma as he has a plastics company (produces bottles for companies in Argentina) and he is always tells me stuff about how weird the peso is ( and we should just use dollar). Though games that cost 15$ now cost like half of the original price!!!
I am from Uruguay, neighbouring Argentina, and I can confirm we use the payment methods described: both on websites and also using a debit card that allows you to buy Argentine Pesos with the unofficial exchange rate.
5:38 Just a heads up, the "WBS LEGAL" Channel, is a germany attorney with a (one of his) focus on (german/eu) copy right (no fair use(!), just basic citation rights). But in my judgement, he is pretty chill about it.
We have far worse problems than whether we can buy usd, for example salaries get adjusted way after inflation destroys its value, of course it bothers me that things with usd are complicated but that’s the least of our problems.
2:01 The coin shown there is actually the 2 pesos coin! Other than that it's it's a very good video explaining the situation of our country's economy. This also reminds me of an NYT Article comparing our monthly inflation being the same as America's annual inflation.
Can someone explain (concisely) why the dollar-peg doesn't work? Was it just not enough physical cash-on-hand? Its ironic because I just watched Sams video about the $1 coins that failed to catch on here in the states. maybe ship those to AR?
Like he said in the video, you have to have 1 dollar in the reserve for every peso in circulation. It worked for a whole decade because it was fueled by a slew of privatizations of state enterprises. To maintain without those cannibalistic measures you’d need very adequate fiscal spending and a very good import/export balance. To keep the dollars coming and not out-print them.
If Argentina wants to buy a bunch of dollar coins they can either pay for them in Dollars, making the whole exercise pointless, or Pesos, which won't work because the US doesn't want them.
the government didn't have enough dollars on hand to convert. And the government can't buy more dollars with pesos on the international market since no one wants pesos. No one is dumb enough to trade 1 dollar for 1 peso on the international market. So as more citizens converted to dollars, the government ran out of dollars and had to put a limit on conversions.
@@NACHOXXX4 In theory, you can do both, but you have to impose strict capital controls (which is the fancy way of saying "get rid of all the scary guys in trenchcoats, so the official exchange rate is the only exchange rate"). This is probably bad for your economy because it tends to reduce international trade. Also, it's not entirely obvious that this is even a thing you can do in the 21st century.
As an Argentinian I can tell that this video is very accurate to how insanely bad the current economic situation is here, and just how weird it can get. The only thing I wanted to point out is that you used the wrong currency symbol in the thumbnail, the Argentinian peso uses the '$' symbol or "ARS$" if you want to use the long one used for exchange rates. I think that the one you used is for the Philippine peso, hence why it's a letter P.
2:52 It was worse than that. If you had dollars in the bank, the bank would not return them to you and the government forced the population to sell those dollars for pesos 1 to 1 when a dollar was worth much more than a peso. And that was the famous corralito.
German here. There is a popular website in Germany that tracks real and legal deals on the internet and that thing totally blew up back in January when this became a thing. The Trick doesn't work anymore with the big bank's cards. Also, most of the popular shops (like Amazon) removed the option to pay in ARS. However, in some combinations, it still works if one uses one of those apps that give you a virtual prepaid credit card. I know people who pay their Tidal subscription that way (Spotify doesn't work) or get premium in like dating apps or something along those things, what would otherwise be super expensive. When this was in full swing, there were rumors of people ordering a Tesla and stuff.
@@Ranjeetsj RUclips keeps deleting my reply :( Mike Yankee Delta Echo Alpha Lima Zulu. Take the first letters of each word, then add the normal German domain ending.
I love how already the exchange rate is off by 20 pesos. It's obvious that you last check that value like a week ago. Also do not forget of the 10 different exchange rates for different things
Fun fact: there's actually 3 rates, black market (a.k.a "Dólar Blue") thats 1:495, turist (a.k.a "Dólar Tarjeta") that's 1:473 and official that's 1:259. Bonus fun fact: By the moment I finish typing this, it probably changed again, ever so sllightly
Argentinean here. Credit cards are not using the black market value (which we call blue), but a "financial" rate (called MEP acronym for Medio Electrónico de Pagos). This rate it's similar, but it's not the same (usually around 20/30 ARS cheaper). We need to buy a bond with ARS and then sell the bond for USD. They authorized the credit cards to use this rate, so tourists will not go to he black market "caves" (and that's the name we have for those shady places) and instead go to the central bank. And the 250 USD limitation didn't start in 2001. Those 250 ARS per week were to get cash out of ATMs, not to buy USD. The first clamp (that's the name press gave to it) was implemented back in 2011, at that time if you wanted to buy USD you'll need an authorization and based on your income and the amount available for sale, the central bank would approve it or not. That's when the blue rate started. Then in 2015 the limitation was removed (or almost, you need authorization for 500K USD or more), and put back in place in 2019. Now yes with the 200USD per month limitation. This also includes Credit Card charges, so when I pay for my Netflix or Spotify subscription, does 10 USD allow me to buy just 190 USD per month. However, the MEP dollar has no limitation, but requires you to have the money in your bank for 15 days (to avoid buying USD at MEP rate and then sell it at blue rate, for a quick turnaround). There's also a lot of taxation for us to buy USD, depending the case, it can be 100%.
Thanks for taking my suggestion. Looking forward to the t-shirt ;) By the way, it was not only working in Germany, but discovered by a German deals blog and therefore big in Germany despite working everywhere in the world. But I bet some cartels have used it in whole different dimensions
Because of a similar currency conversion loophole, buying games on Steam in USD is cheaper than buying then in GBP for the UK. Just need to be careful that a game isn't region-locked (which happens more often than you'd think, cause of the extra European languages we get in our version).
Si a game bought with USD that does not support the requisite languages is Geo Restricted in the UK? But if you night that same game in GBP, it wouldn't be Geo Restricted?
Dutch here, we also used this trick and i saved over 4000,- euro. 75inch TV NEO QLED TV IPAD Vacation 32TB of HDD's and much more, unfortunately i couldn't buy the prusa XL (only a small downpayment). I also returned items for full price back to the store. I was spending 2000,- a day (cc limit)
I worked on the Argentinian version of Wall Street for one summer and there are black market FX traders every few blocks shouting out “i exchange” in Spanish.
It was awesome. My Brother bought a 4090, a 5800x3d, a new Server for our oldest Brother. And Other stuff Like ssds and Other stuff. He did Not overdo it, so it was fine. I bought giftcards that could be used to buy Gas and still have some 😁 And a 5800x3d. But because i did Not have my Creditcard at that time, i Had to wait for my debitcard so i could only use this for a Limited time.
![I.N "HALLUCINATION" | [Stray Kids : SKZ-PLAYER]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/n5B5q1Hwt_U/mqdefault.jpg)
I read the title as "How Argentina gave Germans 40% OF everything" instead of OFF.
And I didn't question it
I think that was Greece
I mean there could be a title like that soon enough but instead of "germans" it would be "china".
@@neshugg9486 That's Portugal... Greece sold to Germany, Portugal to China
We give it to Canada and China
They did that at the end of WW2
Every time this video gets played, our peso devaluates. And when it’s not played, it devaluates too
HA! wrong, the blue just went down 2 pesos as I'm writing this
el video tiene 3 días y dice que el dólar oficial esta a $255 y hoy creo que está arriba de $265.
@@Leonardohummel 11/07 $275.
@@GasparKvarta estaba viendo si subió los últimos minutos pero todavía no 🤣
@@Leonardohummel Es imposible que los extranjeros puedan entender aunque sea el 1% de lo que está pasando. Es una locura tener que explicarles algo así. 🤣
As an argentinean, this is a surprisingly good explanation of the economical situation in Argentina.
It's a dumpsterfire.
Just one thing, the "shady man" is sometimes just a perfectly regulated company like Western Union. Things are funky over here. If by funky you mean a dumpsterfire.
Have you tried using that dumpsterfire to grill sausages?
Welcome to this world - 2023
Ah yes, Western Union, known all over the world for their integrity and total non-shadyness. /s
As another argentinian, I can assure you that when you are reading this comment, our currency is worth less.
Honestly I would just try and fix it by abolishing the domestic currency entirely and just using the U.S. Dollar or Euros or British Pounds or some other currency that is super stable and has decent value.
it's a family discount
That is actually hilarious lol
never ask your argentinian grandfather why he speaks fluent german
You win the internet today.
You can’t say something like that!
I know this is a joke but fr it's nothing like that. Most Argentinians are of Italian or Spanish descent, I'm talking like maybe 80% has a grandparent or great grandparent of those nationalities. It's true we received Nazis escapees but argentina is by no means a racist country.
As a German I am fairly disappointed that it doesn't seem to work anymore.
Edit: But I am absolutely thrilled that the video features Germanys most famous RUclips-lawyer, "Christian Solmecke von der Kölner Medienrechtskanzlei Wilde Beuger und Solmecke".
I read "Beuger" as "Burger", I'm not German but still I tried to pronounce it, thankfully no one was around to laugh at my stupidity 🤣
in der tat
That's a person's name!?
You know what they say
Long name
Long business card
@@joseville Nope his name is "Christian Solmecke" he just said the video introduction he always uses which includes the law company he's at
Is that his full name?
Argentinean here. Another not-so-fun fact is that the current administration has tried to basically do a copy-paste of the "solution" that they applied to tourists. Basically this means that there are currently FIFTEEN (!!!) different exchange rates PER CURRENCY. i.e. the "official", the black market one (which is called "blue"), one for agriculture, one for Argentineans who travelled to the football World Cup (this is not a joke, Google it), and so on.
One more thing: Given it has big effects on the prices of everyday items, pretty much everyone in the country is aware of the black market exchange rate for the Peso-USD. It might seem weird, but it gets published basically everywhere, from websites to major news outlets, TV channels, etc.
No olvides el Dolar Netflix jaja
No te pareció extraña la explicación de "that guy" porque nunca ha sido tan tranfugo cambiar dinero en Argentina, hasta en los kioskos te cambian 😅
@@matiaswagner9810 hahaha si, pero si cambias en Palermo el precio no cambia más de 2 pesos y no esperas nada. Además hay demasiadas casas de cambio que es más seguro que los chorros de Florida
@@fdolarhyde Si estuviera viviendo en el extranjero y alguien me explicase la secuencia de hablar con un arbolito para después ir a una cueva, mi imaginación sería mucho más turbia que la descripción del video 😂
Amo a su país. Soy yanqui y vivía en Argentina por cuatro años. Fui arbolito por los últimos dos años después de que CFK cerró la convertibilidad de pesos. Me cagué de risa cuando descubrí la publicación del precio de “dólar blue” por todos lados y más cuando mis amigos empezaban a pedirme por la venta de dólares. Así empezaba mi “carrera clandestina”. Espero que la situación económica mejore para un país tan hermoso.
(Sorry for my Spanish errors, I’m not as fluent as I once was.)
FUN FACT: Videogames on steam cost double the price in Argentina now due to people using our steam store to get cheaper games 🇦🇷🇦🇷🇦🇷
No solo el doble, unos juegos que valian 200 pesos en steam ahora valen 1000, sin impuestos (con impuestos es 2000 y algo)
Fun fact!
Plus we get charged an extra hidden 80% by the credit card companies after you buy anything on the steam store.
@@tomasxfrancofun fact existe un plugin para navegador q te muestra el precio de los juegos + el 75% de impuestos q se nos carga, steamcito se llama por si no sabian ☝️🤓
@@korrewabeats thanks
As a Lebanese person, I knew the answer to the question before you even finished it. With our current inflation that has been going on since the early Covid days, and since foreign online stores were unaware of the exchange rate fluctuations, some of us were able to take advantage of this loophole before the stores figured it out and stopped allowing us to pay in Lebanese Pounds. A friend of mine once bought a $1500 camera online for the equivalent of $300.
I was going to comment that a more contemporary example of this would be Lebanon
The president that brought in a truly brilliant economist to peg the peso to the dollar, and fixed inflation in the 90s is the same guy that later didn't want to lose the elections, so he fired that guy and tried to keep the lie that 1 peso was worth 1 dollar alive by any means possible, and all of the later mess kind of comes straight from that.
That guy's name was Menem. Sounds familiar? Yeah, his family was from Lebanon.
yeah same here we have alot of currency inflation before we switched to euro but I don’t care about the inflation rate anymore, because you’re truly priceless to me!😫
@@jonjohnson2844what do you mean more contemporary? What's going on in Argentina is still going on without any signs of stopping
Wow, inflation sounds so cool!! I will vote for a politician that promises the most inflation for my country!!!!
As an Argentinian I am amazed how well you explained this monster problem. Foreigners usually don´t believe/fully understand that this is the reality and not a prank show.
As an argentine, everytime a foreigner asks how much does X cost in your country, my general answer is "I don't know, but i can tell you how much it cost two months ago..."
How is Argentina still with any money f I were in charge, the next time people mass trade their domestic for something else, I’d formally adopt whatever is most common
La verdad q Argentina es un reality show
@@QuarioQuario54321one of the presidential candidates basically starts on this very platform. If everyone is hoarding dollars, why not just ditch the peso, lol.
The problem is it creates a very clear winning group of people and those are generally the moneychangers and their clients, who are still considered criminals :)
Src: I'm no Argentine, I'm Polish, but we had this exact situation 30 years ago, but it didn't last for 50 years in a row.
Surprisingly the dollar black market in Argentina looks quite formal, is not like buying to a shady guy on the street, is buying to a shady guy on a regular office
Sometimes they are even less shady than the politicians that govern us!!!
They are not shady! They are an integral part of the economy.
Just because it is illegal it doesn't mean people are some shady gangster.
The black market IS an important part of making the economy work in these cases. Like the market black during the war times or the black market of any communist country.
Los "arbolitos" son gente normal con dolares que venden, suelen ser agradables, no son como vendedores de drogas o algo asi jajaja no tenes que tenerles miedo a los primeros
Argentinian here, pretty accurate description. In fact the thing mentioned about the 2001 crisis was even worse: it wasn't that you can convert only 250 ARS to USD per week, it was that you was only allowed to withdraw just 250 ARS from the bank each week (there was no limit for transfers or paying with debit cards, only cash withdrawals). That lasted for a few weeks on December 2001 before the government collapsed and the ARS was de-pegged to the dollar.
Honestly if that doesn’t work though I’d abolish the domestic currency and start using the US Dollar or Euro or something like that.
You may be Argentinian, but being MrBeastian is always the best 💪
@@QuarioQuario54321thars the proposal of one of the candidates
However its a bad idea. It will basically extremely limit the ammount of currency in cirvulation since using a foreign coin is much more expensive than using local currency.
Not to mention that it will basically permanently tie us to the US sphere of influence and limit the ammount of ecobomic decisions you can take
@@felipea1399The last part seems like a plus, given that Argentina consistently makes the worst possible economic decisions.
@@antoniosoares9273 sure, the leadership is stupid.
But not having economic independence basically kills your chances to try to do anything when theres a problem that needs to be fixed without getting into more debt
Es el uno a uno de nuevo. Nos vamos a endeudar y vamos a tener de nuevo un colapso economico
I'm surprised this video wasn't created by the Spiffing Brit: The Argentinian Economy is PERFECTLY Balanced.
😂😂funny, but..
My fellow tea enjoyer, never forget "with no exploits" part again
Actually we have:
Official Dollar
Blue Dollar: Black market rate
MEP Dollar: Rate used in the Argentinian sovereign bonds
CCL Dollar: Rate used in the stock exchange
Solidarity dollar (Official + 30% tax): This is the rate you have if you are given permission to buy dollars on the banks
Credit/Debit Card dollar (Official + 30% PAIS tax + 45% income tax in advance + 25% wealth tax in advance): made to decrease use of dollars in online shopping, suscriptions and tourism abroad. You can fight for a refund of the income tax though.
Soybean dollar: A temporary rate to try and stimulate agrarian exports
Electronic dollar: A better rate given to people that are paid in dollars to keep them in the financial system
Tourist dollar: The one in the video
And i'm probably forgetting about other ones too
dolar catar loco, obviamente, siempre faltan más cuando se trata de distintos tipos de dolar
I won't be surprised if Argentina creates more dollar-peso exchange rate in addition to those you mentioned. The system looks confusing and piecemeal.
You have missed the frank sinatra's dollar jajaja
Fuck it, just go back to bartering. Might have a better chance starting this whole economy thing anew.
@@geniemiki just going forward to crypto
5:11 As a German, I had to pause the video at that point because I couldn't see it anymore through the tears from laughing 😂 12/10 pronunciation 👌 Didn't know Sam's mother tongue was German xD
I did the same XD
Even a non german, i knew he was way off, lol.
100% richtig ausgesprochen weiß nich was euer problem ist 😂
Achtung! The key to proper German pronunciation as a foreigner is always use enthusiasm and certainty when speaking German words.
I was actually impressed because it wasn't tooo bad 👀
I've definitly heard worse!
That's the reason why Brazilians are travelling a lot more to Argentina these days. Basically anything you pay using an international credit card (Mastercard or Visa) is about 40% off compared to the official exchange rate. On top of that, tourists are exempt from VAT (aka IVA) in hotels.
Even duty free items which are historically very expensive when bought in Argentina (it actually still is, if you pay in USD) are very cheap when paying using an international credit card (or Argentinian pesos).
Duty free are a scam in Argentina. It's still cheaper than buying in Brazil or Uruguay, but you can get better prices on a liquor store
Eu estava me perguntando se os brasileiros poderiam se beneficiar disso de algum jeito (ganhar 40% de desconto nas costas do Estado argentino seria muito satisfatório).
Acho que, em compras online, um amigo meu alegou que comprava os jogos da Nintendo na loja virtual argentina pq compensava mais.
That was my question. If using the exchange rate loophole saves you 40%, but the item is marked up 200% or 300%, then is it really still a deal, even without having to pay VAT?
Same for Chile. People are crossing the border all the time to buy groceries in Mendoza, Cordoba, Bariloche, Neuquen,etc., because it's way cheaper than here with the whole exchange rate craziness. The borders somewhat close during winter but I'm sure when spring comes the crossings will skyrocket again
You know it's bad when Brazil is seen as the light of stability in your region
Wish I had the means to travel to Argentina rn, like my cousin did in February. I just wish more that it wasn't in this situation
Argentine here. I have only two things to say about this video: 1- yes, this does not surprise me in the least; 2- everything explained here is accurate, yet most of the population somehow believes everything wrong with our economy is somehow _everyone else's fault but ours._ Shady politicians everywhere must have been gawking in admiration at our guys for the last 100 years or so lol
Whose faults do people generally think it is?
@@justarandomgothamite5466 whoever their party leadership tells them. Sorry for the wall of text btw lol.
Alternatively:
- Big land owners: soy "farmers" only at a massive scale, which bring in a ton of money on exports and are taxed to oblivion - they can levy those taxes on them only if the public enables them to dl so, hence the demonization. The argument is they hold so much land and so much power, they get rich by exploiting their workers (basic ass class warfare speech).
- The IMF: basically the only guys willing to lend the government any money at this point, with interest rates way higher than for the vast majority of countries in the region because, well, that's what money lending is like when you're considered to be a high risk for defaulting on your loans lol. Of course, the spiel goes along the lines of "they lend us money at loan shark rates while attempting to make us change our government policies and general ideology to make us fall under empire rule!". In reality what they usually lecture us for is our ridiculous, unsustainable amounts of public spending, and general measures that would make it more plausible for us to be able to pay back that money.
- The news media: anyone that doesn't sing their tune is against them and wants to overthrow them. This one is a big hit in many places, not just us.
- The judicial system: _"the 'judiciary party' keeps accusing our main leaders of corruption and money laundering because they want to make us look bad! They're alligned with the opposition, they themselves are corrupt"_ *proceed to foster a sort of party-adjacent organization WITHIN THE JUDICIAL SYSTEM, which is EXACTLY what they accuse the opposition of doing, and is 100% illegal. Bear in mind this party-adjacent thing is not some sort of conspiracy theory thing, they're extremely vocal about it, going to rallies with their own banners and shit. It's mental. Of course those guys _do_ push prosecutions that are 99% of times somewhere between laughable and outright enragingly corrupt
- The US: nothing to add, the US being the big bad empire that wants our government to stop their miraculous public spending programs that enable the poor to scrape a living... If you buy into that, which you should be really dumb to considering those programs basically keep those people hostage and that's precisely why they will never take the steps necessary to phase them out. Phasing those programs out would require a bunch of other reforms previously, mainly creating conditions that would make it possible for new jobs to be needed, which those people could eventually fill.
@@justarandomgothamite5466 oh, I forgot one of the most hilarious ones: there were a few months they were blaming inflation on the Ukranian war. Bear in mind we're _competitors_ with both Ukraine and Russia on agricultural exports; the war should have *benefitted* us. Our main economic ties by far at this point are with Brazil, which is right next to us, and China. Brazil doesn't give a flying fuck about the war, and China directly benefitted from it and will keep on doing so for decades.
Best answer
Definitely no 100. I’d say exactly 57 years and 6 months💀💀💀
I was able to capitalize off that loophole but didnt overdo it, however there were people paying their rent in pesos or just sending paypal money back and forth with their friends, essentially creating unlimited money. Was a very fun 3 days while it lasted
How much did some people make off the paypal thing?
Well in the ten thousands actually
@@JakeLikesTechbut you had to have a big enough credit card limit for that
@@ericschinke8466 could you not use a debit card?
So, Argentina invented a "money duplication glitch"?
I was born and raised in Chile, neighboring Argentina, and I remember news of like, people filling their tires with US Dollars to smuggle money to Argentina.
That, and how it was common knowledge that you could always buy more stuff with the same amount of money in Argentina.
There are videos of people filling tires with tires to smuggle tires to argentina because it was too expensive to import the tires legally (because of taxes).
They somehow managed to get 4 tires per tire which means you get more tire out of your tire.
The video is amaizing. You say "no way they are pulling ANOTHER TIRE OUT" and then they stick in a cross wrench and take out another tire.
@@federicocaputo9966 i must watch this now
We smuggle tires, and you smuggle students who come to study in our universities for free
@@fss1704 ruclips.net/user/shortsUAbAXJwlyrI?feature=share3
As an economist & Argentinian, this video is a nice quick summary about how the macroeconomic instability of our country generates certain other effects as curious as the mentioned (many of them are quite funny actually).
could you point to other funny effects?
What would happen if the economy ended up getting so bad there was no chance of recovery?
There are Argentinian economists? Are you the only one? 🇬🇧 😂
@@memofromessex there are many but they sleep at school.
@@memofromessex there's actually plenty of them. not that it matters, tho. no economist worth their salt wants to deal with argentina's economy
LMFAO, (a friend of mine) tried prepaying 30K$ of tuition ahead of time in pesos and he claims it may ir may not have worked for a while but eventually the oopsie was undone
now that's bold
@@user-sl6gn1ss8p allegedly
@@berengerchristy6256 So it's _italics?_
It was not an "oopsie" actually. We were aware that it would happen before it did, I remember having that conversation. Politicians did it on porpouse
Having just spent a couple months in Argentina, just have to say this is mostly right, but there's technically 3 different exchange rates right now if you're a tourist in Argentina. There's the regular official rate (as on xe etc) which you can get away without using. The blue dollar rate which you get from exchanging US dollars with a guy on a street corner (it's really not all that shady tbh) which is around 490 pesos to the $ as Sam mentions in the video. And then there's the credit card rate or MEP rate which is somewhere in between but not quite as good as the blue dollar cash rate. Plus you can just transfer $ with Western Union or someone and then go and change it up at the blue dollar rate on the street corner. Either way, it's crazy cheap to buy stuff in Argentina right now but you can't help but feel sorry for the locals who just see their money become less valuable by the day. :(
Yeah, it's insane. And there's actually even more than three exchange rates, there's the "soy dollar" for example, and during the World Cup (⭐⭐⭐) there even was a "Qatar dollar" lol
We make fun of it because otherwise we'd be crying 😂
Oh, boy, just 3 exchange rates? We have like 13 exchange rates, with some jewels like "netflix dollar" and "coldplay dollar"
@@matiasl.ceballos3346 Is there an Only Fans dollar? Asking for a friend...
but if you send dollars by WU you will get pesos, not dollars and you'll get them at the blue rate.
True, but most people cant get "Coldplay dollar" (yes, named after the band) or "soy dollar", or "netflix dollar" those are different rates that some people with influence gets from the government or get via an order from a court of justice or for some other reason. The rest of the official rates depends on what taxes the government decides to apply to your credit card expenditures.
i love how in 2:35 you put people celebrating and made it look like a riot. It was the World Cup celebrations after all
Einfach Solmecke hier zu sehen ist anders wild
Der Beweis für die perfekte RUclips-Bubble 👍
Wann Crossover Folge mit Legal Eagle?
What is also amazing is the shear number of exchange rates we have. The official exchange is ~265, BUT If an Argentine buys something from abroad, is charged a 75% extra in taxes (aka "card dollar"). If he buys more than 300usd in a month, the excess is charged an aditional 35% (tourist dollar). If you pay for something like spotify, or amazon prime, its 74%, total (Netflix dollar). If you are a farmer selling soybeans, you were paid 300 (soy dollar). Same for wine and olives. If a foreign artist gives a show in Argentina, is paid a bit extra (Coldplay dollar). If you sell a service abroad, ie, as a free lancer, you are paid at the official exchange rate, but 20% is given to you in actual dollars (the final result is called techno dollar). Now, if you live here, you pay day to day things in pesos, you make savings in dollars or euros, and you buy a car or a house in dollars. But beware: if you sell something to us, we may pay you in yuans 😂
Hey, German viewer here. It was too funny how you butchered Amazon's answer. 😂
I don't know if the word "butcher" really does justice to what I just heard lmao
My favorite part is that he didn't even bother to try to pronounce the number in German xD Too bad, I would have loved to hear Sam say zweitausendsiebenhundertsechsundneunzig xD
And then gave up on the numbers
it was very fun to listen to
That was the most amazing part of the video. I had to rewind four times and I’m still laughing my ass off.
Egypt is facing a similar USD exchange rate issue, where the official exchange rate is 30 EGP per 1 USD, where it is lurking around 37 in the black market, but the issue is that the bank does NOT let anyone exchange at that official rate. You are legally able to, but only if you are traveling abroad (you need to provide paperwork to prove that) or you have a USD account. Here's the thing, the tellers will tell you "sorry, we don't have USDs" most of the time unless you are very lucky. They will happily though convert your USDs to EGPs at that low rate, but they will not do the reverse. And, you will be called names if you go to the black market for this, first of them is "unpatriotic" and sometimes "treason".
Imagine how you are being forced to deal with the black market because the banks simply don't allow USD exchange, but at the same time you are a traitor. How fun this is..
i like that you at the end use a video explaining the problem from an actual lawyer and not just some random person.
German here. This sounds crazy, but it actually worked. You didn’t mention the craziest thing: you could PayPal your friends money and pay by cc. Literally printing money. Send them 1000€, 600€ get deducted from your account.
Was fixed pretty quickly but i assume some made a pretty penny with that.
And who paid for that?
Sadly the working middle clases of Argentina, i know because i'm one of them. No hard feelings tho, i'd have done the same, it's "free" money after all
@@pibenando1 as a middle class form argentina, yes we are going to pay it, but still our politicians are to blame not the germans, which is a quite odd thing to say "not blame the germans" went you can point out so many problems to the germans lol
very funny but as an argentinian, we dont have enough fundings and this shit happened. This is a disgrace
You could even put money on crypto wallets by credit card, essentially buying every cryptocurrency with 40% discount.
Finacial loopholes are always the most fascinating, since the business class literally have a team of people making sure they make max profit, so when these type of exploits go thru, I chuckle.
As someone from Zimbabwe, this is child's play!
Omg it was a Solemecke Video. He is basically the German legal eagle and makes daily law videos
Pretty good explanation! As Argentine, I'd like to add that the "blue dollar" exchange rate (or black market rate) is not the only one that currently exists. We have tens of different exchange rates (some with funny names) like "Coldplay dollar", "Qatar dollar", "Stock exchange dollar", "Solidary dollar", "Soy dollar", "Crypto dollar", etc.
Those are not different exchange rates. They are taxes, which is different
I’m randomly in Argentina right now and this videos timing is crazy because I looked at my statement and realized I spent half the amount of money that I actually thought I did
Don’t use a credit card, you can get more ARS if you exchange your cash at an illegal exchange office. If you don’t have cash, use western union. The credit card exchange rate is 460/USD and the WU/Illegal rate is closer to 500/USD. Enjoy your stay and thanks for bringing in foreign currency, we desperately need it.
@@incarteminerYT Wait so for instance in Buenos Aires, on Calle Florida... where all those people are shouting "cambio" do an exchange with them??
@@incarteminerYT
Don't you realize that currency is just printed papers? If a tourist buys goods from you in Argentina below typical market prices, then each such purchase deepens the poverty of Argentina.
What you need is forward thinking, a balanced state budget and a free market
I like how you used the 20, when the most commonly used denominations are of 100, 200, 500 and 1000 due to inflation
The poor, poor Guanaco 😅
It just has the funniest face imo
@@MaryamMaqdisi hahaha true
5:19 Sam you missed the German reading for the number there, but I really don't get why, you would just have to say zweitausendsiebenhundertsechsundneunzig, easy peasy xD
i spent a bit of time in Argentina, and literally no one got their pesos from the Argentine bank. We all exchange our dollars for pesos on the "Black Market". But id say black market is a bit of a strong word for the establishments that provided the exchanging services. it more of a slightly grey white, if you catch my drift. the bank rate or "Formal Rate" over inflated the cost of a peso.
In reality, it's perfectly legal, and not a black market at all. The government says it's a black market, the government says it's illegal, but any decree saying it's illegal is unconstitutional.
Chilean here, some places in argentina had restrict foreigners from buying at supermarkets because it became so stupidly cheap to go to argentina and buy stuff there.
Also, i can go and eat at a expensive restaurant in argentina with my family (300km drive) for less than what it would cost to eat at normal restaurant in chile.
Bro, why does my country have to be a joke?
@@m41437 Porque todavia no mandamos a los Peronistas al paredon
@@sekinnnnn1121y los montoneros.
@@sekinnnnn1121 No entiendo cómo matar a alguien va a cambiar algo.
They banned Brazilians from filling up at gas stations on the border too haha
Never a good sign when it's Germany and Argentina
Especially for Argentina when it is about the world cup
A little reference to German officers escaping to Argentina at the end of WWII.
@@Varraz did you miss the last one?
@@bistek2769 we let Argentina win the World Cup for a nice discount
In Argentina's defense, it welcomes everyone. In fact, it has the world's largest Jewish community aside from Israel and US.
You just gave an excelent explanation of our current situation, good job! I'm so sad to see my homeland like that, I hope someday this change.
Talked about this with my lawyer. He said there's about a 60-70% chance I could keep it in his opinion, but it'd put me in a terrible standing with my bank, which issued my credit card and holds my loans and Paypal, which I use for 95% of my private AND mostly business purchases. So I didn't do it.
Im very happy for everyone who did, and got away with it.
If you had the resources and necessary fervor it looked like a great deal.
I shudder to think of US credit companies devising how to make people pay for it. You know they aren't just letting this go. 😂
@@studiouskid1528 US credit card companies have never cared about legality.
The bank doesn’t give a shit, they’re not going to pay for any of this, so it was a free for all on the back of Argentina’s economy.
As an argentine econ student the amount of rage this video has given me is insane
😂😂😂😂😂😂😂🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣😁😁😁😁😁😁😁😁
La diferencia del rulo este la pagaba amazon o el bcra? Decime que no le terminamos financiando las compras a los gringos pq lloro
@@ravvvvvv Averigüe y oor suerte Amazon. Y ya no se puede hacer. Así que no estoy tan enojado
As someone living next to Argentina (Paraguay), it was always common knowledge since I was born how the Argentinians are obsessed with the US Dollar and all the exchange rates and how you could always take advantage of that.
For example, we would convert our national currency (Guarani) to US Dollars freely in any of the exchange shops in our city, as our currency is not controlled and the exchange rate is a free market thing, and then cross the border to Argentina where we were suddenly millionaires as Argentinians were DESPERATE for Dollar and would pay 3 or 4 times more.
With all the millions of Pesos we had we would then spend it all on the Goverment-subsidized products like foodstuff and gas as it was also heavily artificially controlled and you could fill your gas tank for a 10th of the normal cost.
It was a circus at the gas station where you would see kilometers of foreign-owned cars in line waiting their turn to get that almost free petrol and you could only laugh at the disparity of the state controlled economy on one side and free capitalism on the other on display in your face.
flaco, sos paraguayo.
@@everflores9484jajaja que chabon
Paraguay no existe
@@everflores9484 re zarpado el loco, se pudo comprar un montón de chipa
@@YTrandomusr24basadisimo
I'm from Brazil and I'm going to Argentina next week and is just like you said, everything is about 40% off. And the shady guy that exchange money is literally any Argentinian / store
trampa com o que?
3:59 ok but are we just gonna ignore the fact that there's stock footage out there of a doctor holding up a stethoscope to a dollar bill-
The first time I was in Argentina when I came back to the U.S. i went to a currency exchange to convert my pesos back to dollars and was told, nope. We don't do that. Pesos are worthless.
The last time I was in Argentina I handed over all my leftover pesos to the taxi driver that took me to the airport for my flight home. He was a happy man. I think he got the equivalent of about $50-$100 U.S. dollars as a tip. No sense in bringing them home with me.
As a German who has benefited heavily from this, I’m so glad to see this video xD
Are you still able to do this ?
Also curious 😅
@@thunderb00m No
PIG 🐖
How strange Germany taking advantage of a vulnerable country, and you are proud of it ? Seems WW2 haven’t though anything to your people of how fucking shitty and low Germans can get. Absolutely disgusting
5:34 Christian Solmecke 😂
I did some work in Argentina in 1983, and the situation was similar, except for the credit card part. There was the official exchange rate at a bank and then a much better rate on the street corner, so that has been an ongoing issue. It was also when they were changing from pesos to “pesos Argentinos”, with 10,000 pesos = 1 peso Argentino. The old notes of 1,000,000 pesos and new notes of 100 pesos Argentinos were the same value and around US$4 on the street.
As a German, I sadly didn't got the memo. I am even subscribed to the channel that is shown in the end (well known law channel in Germany, mostly for digital rights) and still missed it.
Ich hatte den deal auf mydealz gesehen als der gepostet wurde, aber da stand das man damit xbox gift cards 40% günstiger kriegen kann, deswegen hatte ich den nicht weiter beachtet, weil ich keine xbox habe, hätte ich den deal mal gründlicher angeguckt, bzw. den und die Kommentare besser verfolgt.
Great video! I've always been extremely interested in Argentina and their economy and I feel like this explains it very well. Hopefully I will move down there for a little bit in the coming years for work!
Doesn't seem like a great time to move down there. Hope they get their economy sorted out soon.
As a german who watched the video shown at 5:35 the beginning of this video was still informative.
And I didn't knew this was still possible, I thought they fixed all loopholes even before that video came out
Der hat zumindest für ein paar chinashops und Flugtickets funktioniert aber nur bis kurz nachdem Christians Video gepostet wurde
0:32 That is Oaks Park in Portland Oregon... I've been there like a million times now, lol.
It’s hilarious to me how a foreigner can understand and explain our country’s economic situation perfectly and yet some people in Argentina would argue to death that there still one and only exchange rate 🥴
Peronists are extremely mentally handicapped, dont be cruel to them, they just were born that way
I've literally never heard someone say that. All argentinians know about the official and unofficial exchange rates.
@@tuchi8519 so you never encountered one of those specimens that claim that the parallel exchange rate is illegal and therefore not recognized by them? Lucky you!
@@f.c.5694 quien no lo reconoce? Es ilegal porque por ley no está permitido, pero nadie dice que no exista. Estás mandando cualquiera.
En realidad no existen más que 3 cotizaciones primarias, legales (oficial, MEP y CCL) y luego según los impuestos que se apliquen, otros valores finales de cotización. Pero no existen todas esas cotizaciones que se piensan que hay. Los impuestos no son cotizaciones independientes, per se. Por supuesto que además hay una cotización "blue", que tiene un valor de referencia, pero no una cotización oficial. Cada uno le pone el precio que quiere.
Fun fact, Steam worked like this for a very long time. The site had prices in pesos but seems it wasn't updating the value properly, and it was getting ridiculously cheap (not including discounts). Some time ago they kind of fixed that, at least for major titles
It usually wasn't an error, it was regional pricing for multiple reasons (hidden 80% tax argentinians pay for foreign transactions, and low relative purchasing power to name 2) but foreign people exploiting it lead to it being nerfed.
HAI x WBS Legal collab incoming ?
So argentina not only gave germany 2 world cups and a retirement home for their elderly, but also huge shopping discounts
As an argentinean, this is almost everything right, is funny and sad at the same time. The only thing I would correct is that the prices of the dollar in the black market, the "blue dollar", is accesible to everyone and it's even on the newspapers websites for you to check depending where city you are at. And there's more than ten types of dollar prices depending on what and how much of them you're spending.🤣
i was just studyign abroad in argentina, it was absolutely wild to see this difference
Very accurate description of my country's economy. However, during the 2001 crisis, after the economy collapse, not only you weren't allowed to withdraw money, but all savings in dollars were automatically converted into pesos, which was now 1/3 of the dollar value. Right after that caos in the city spread out like wildfire.
In Argentina we have a phone app that shows the 10+ different USD to ARS exchange rates. Because it’s not the same exchange rate for those who spend money abroad with a credit card, than for those who also spend with a credit card, but spend more than USD 300 in a month.
As a German who got this info pretty quick I decided to not use this loopwhole because I knew that it would damage Argentina even more and I love this country and I got a lot of friends there and people I really care about.
As a Argentine, thank you.
Thanks!
Argentinian here:
The situation is quite the dumpster fire, and my dad can confirma as he has a plastics company (produces bottles for companies in Argentina) and he is always tells me stuff about how weird the peso is ( and we should just use dollar).
Though games that cost 15$ now cost like half of the original price!!!
Games are cheap, but the computers needed to run them are out of reach for most people
@@tanostrelok2323😢 i feel that
As an Argentine, this is a spot on explanation of the current monetary issues here. Great video!
Next video: "Argentina accidentally gives 40% off to everyone and goes bankrupt"
Actually websites lost money not Argentina
that our secret, we are always bankrupt
We're one step ahead of you: we've been bankrupt this whole time
@@gyurhanaziz7676somehow Argentina "won" money
That stock footage on the obscure Adrenaline Peak at Oaks Park in Oregon was an interesting sight to see here. Nice
There was a time when wealthy people were described as being "rich as an Argentine."
I bought 15000 EUR worth of Amazon gift cards at 40% off. Best deal of my life. Thanks, Argentina. 🇦🇷❤
The second best deal Argentina ever offered Germans.
5:34 Das ist offiziell der Ort, an dem ich am _wenigsten_ einen Cameo von Solmecke erwartet hätte xD
This video is 60% as interesting now!
@mouykaing7456 I was seeing it as 40% taken from the whole interesting to give the video a 10% interest boost
I am from Uruguay, neighbouring Argentina, and I can confirm we use the payment methods described: both on websites and also using a debit card that allows you to buy Argentine Pesos with the unofficial exchange rate.
"Then they got rid of it and replaced with a new Peso"
I think I can imagine why people aren't valuing it
Arguing with an Argie usually goes something like this:
'h-how many world cu-*dies of hunger'
I’d love to hear Sam narrate an entire video while reading the script in German 🤣
01:56 Typo. I think he meant to say -- On airline chili dogs.
as a german i approve of this message
Das ist gut
5:38 Just a heads up, the "WBS LEGAL" Channel, is a germany attorney with a (one of his) focus on (german/eu) copy right (no fair use(!), just basic citation rights).
But in my judgement, he is pretty chill about it.
We have far worse problems than whether we can buy usd, for example salaries get adjusted way after inflation destroys its value, of course it bothers me that things with usd are complicated but that’s the least of our problems.
5:12 GREAT! Now you summoned that 500 year old demon in my house!
THANK-YOU!
Just another normal day in Argentina.
2:01 The coin shown there is actually the 2 pesos coin!
Other than that it's it's a very good video explaining the situation of our country's economy. This also reminds me of an NYT Article comparing our monthly inflation being the same as America's annual inflation.
Can someone explain (concisely) why the dollar-peg doesn't work? Was it just not enough physical cash-on-hand? Its ironic because I just watched Sams video about the $1 coins that failed to catch on here in the states. maybe ship those to AR?
Like he said in the video, you have to have 1 dollar in the reserve for every peso in circulation. It worked for a whole decade because it was fueled by a slew of privatizations of state enterprises. To maintain without those cannibalistic measures you’d need very adequate fiscal spending and a very good import/export balance. To keep the dollars coming and not out-print them.
Anyway pegging your currency to someone else’s makes you dependent and removes your power to do monetary policy.
If Argentina wants to buy a bunch of dollar coins they can either pay for them in Dollars, making the whole exercise pointless, or Pesos, which won't work because the US doesn't want them.
the government didn't have enough dollars on hand to convert. And the government can't buy more dollars with pesos on the international market since no one wants pesos. No one is dumb enough to trade 1 dollar for 1 peso on the international market. So as more citizens converted to dollars, the government ran out of dollars and had to put a limit on conversions.
@@NACHOXXX4 In theory, you can do both, but you have to impose strict capital controls (which is the fancy way of saying "get rid of all the scary guys in trenchcoats, so the official exchange rate is the only exchange rate"). This is probably bad for your economy because it tends to reduce international trade. Also, it's not entirely obvious that this is even a thing you can do in the 21st century.
As an Argentinian I can tell that this video is very accurate to how insanely bad the current economic situation is here, and just how weird it can get.
The only thing I wanted to point out is that you used the wrong currency symbol in the thumbnail, the Argentinian peso uses the '$' symbol or "ARS$" if you want to use the long one used for exchange rates. I think that the one you used is for the Philippine peso, hence why it's a letter P.
This is absolutely exhilarating!!!... wait... I live in Argentina!!! and all this is 100% true!!!... this is absolutely horrifying!!!!!
2:52 It was worse than that. If you had dollars in the bank, the bank would not return them to you and the government forced the population to sell those dollars for pesos 1 to 1 when a dollar was worth much more than a peso. And that was the famous corralito.
I like how you called Disney a Foreign regime 😂
German here. There is a popular website in Germany that tracks real and legal deals on the internet and that thing totally blew up back in January when this became a thing. The Trick doesn't work anymore with the big bank's cards. Also, most of the popular shops (like Amazon) removed the option to pay in ARS. However, in some combinations, it still works if one uses one of those apps that give you a virtual prepaid credit card. I know people who pay their Tidal subscription that way (Spotify doesn't work) or get premium in like dating apps or something along those things, what would otherwise be super expensive. When this was in full swing, there were rumors of people ordering a Tesla and stuff.
Can you help with the website? Recently shifted to Germany
@@Ranjeetsj RUclips keeps deleting my reply :( Mike Yankee Delta Echo Alpha Lima Zulu. Take the first letters of each word, then add the normal German domain ending.
@@Raveheart thanks I will check it. Appreciate it
I love how already the exchange rate is off by 20 pesos. It's obvious that you last check that value like a week ago. Also do not forget of the 10 different exchange rates for different things
Fun fact: there's actually 3 rates, black market (a.k.a "Dólar Blue") thats 1:495, turist (a.k.a "Dólar Tarjeta") that's 1:473 and official that's 1:259.
Bonus fun fact: By the moment I finish typing this, it probably changed again, ever so sllightly
Glad to see argentinian economy has become a meme beyond the rest of Latinoamérica
😂🤣
Argentinean here. Credit cards are not using the black market value (which we call blue), but a "financial" rate (called MEP acronym for Medio Electrónico de Pagos). This rate it's similar, but it's not the same (usually around 20/30 ARS cheaper). We need to buy a bond with ARS and then sell the bond for USD. They authorized the credit cards to use this rate, so tourists will not go to he black market "caves" (and that's the name we have for those shady places) and instead go to the central bank.
And the 250 USD limitation didn't start in 2001. Those 250 ARS per week were to get cash out of ATMs, not to buy USD.
The first clamp (that's the name press gave to it) was implemented back in 2011, at that time if you wanted to buy USD you'll need an authorization and based on your income and the amount available for sale, the central bank would approve it or not. That's when the blue rate started.
Then in 2015 the limitation was removed (or almost, you need authorization for 500K USD or more), and put back in place in 2019. Now yes with the 200USD per month limitation. This also includes Credit Card charges, so when I pay for my Netflix or Spotify subscription, does 10 USD allow me to buy just 190 USD per month. However, the MEP dollar has no limitation, but requires you to have the money in your bank for 15 days (to avoid buying USD at MEP rate and then sell it at blue rate, for a quick turnaround).
There's also a lot of taxation for us to buy USD, depending the case, it can be 100%.
great video just finished watching the whole thing
Dam bro time traveled
Thanks for taking my suggestion. Looking forward to the t-shirt ;)
By the way, it was not only working in Germany, but discovered by a German deals blog and therefore big in Germany despite working everywhere in the world. But I bet some cartels have used it in whole different dimensions
Because of a similar currency conversion loophole, buying games on Steam in USD is cheaper than buying then in GBP for the UK.
Just need to be careful that a game isn't region-locked (which happens more often than you'd think, cause of the extra European languages we get in our version).
Si a game bought with USD that does not support the requisite languages is Geo Restricted in the UK? But if you night that same game in GBP, it wouldn't be Geo Restricted?
@@joseville you get an uk locked version. And it's not because of the languages; it's because steam doesn't want you to buy the cheapest version.
I've heard stories of people buying games on steam in foreign currencies to get cheaper prices
that's not the same currency loophole, it's the regional prices.
Dutch here, we also used this trick and i saved over 4000,- euro.
75inch TV NEO QLED TV
IPAD
Vacation
32TB of HDD's
and much more, unfortunately i couldn't buy the prusa XL (only a small downpayment). I also returned items for full price back to the store. I was spending 2000,- a day (cc limit)
I hope Argentina adopt the USD one day as the main currency 🙏🏻
I worked on the Argentinian version of Wall Street for one summer and there are black market FX traders every few blocks shouting out “i exchange” in Spanish.
It was awesome.
My Brother bought a 4090, a 5800x3d, a new Server for our oldest Brother. And Other stuff Like ssds and Other stuff. He did Not overdo it, so it was fine.
I bought giftcards that could be used to buy Gas and still have some 😁
And a 5800x3d.
But because i did Not have my Creditcard at that time, i Had to wait for my debitcard so i could only use this for a Limited time.
As someone from argentina, this was a really good explanation! great vid!