MercoPress, en Español

Montevideo, April 24th 2024 - 12:08 UTC

 

 

Argentine construction slides and could worsen because of US dollar restrictions

Saturday, June 2nd 2012 - 03:50 UTC
Full article 43 comments

Argentina's construction activity experienced a notable slowdown in April, the latest indicator pointing to a cooling of economic growth. Looking ahead prospects are not encouraging given the strict restrictions on US dollars, which is the main currency for real estate operations in Argentina. Read full article

Comments

Disclaimer & comment rules
  • yankeeboy

    A very rich guy told me, you are never forced to buy but you can be forced to sell.
    Watch property values start to plummet as people get desperate for U$. It's hard to pay rent when you are unemployed and there is hyperinflation. I made a lot of money buying property from desperate RGs in 2001-3.

    Jun 02nd, 2012 - 11:38 am - Link - Report abuse 0
  • Conqueror

    Whoops!

    Jun 02nd, 2012 - 03:09 pm - Link - Report abuse 0
  • tobias

    @1

    It is in these examples that I would really like to divulge some of the salient instances of éclat in my young life... But alas, silencing people in this website for posterity with trenchant and confuting remarks is not important enough to unveil some secrets away.

    Jun 02nd, 2012 - 03:17 pm - Link - Report abuse 0
  • ChrisR

    @1

    I think he who cannot be named, is 'upset' with your post. :o)

    Looks like you will be able to repeat the exercise again very shortly!

    Jun 02nd, 2012 - 03:40 pm - Link - Report abuse 0
  • tobias

    Obviously not important enough to rise beyond nugatory and redound to altering my steadfast policy, of not utilizing decidedly personal information to butress my arguments here!

    (no language skills are not decidedly personal, it is the medium we use to communicate here, duh)

    Funny the commentary above comes from a man living in a country whose land is de facto argie. :)

    Jun 02nd, 2012 - 03:48 pm - Link - Report abuse 0
  • British_Kirchnerist

    Interesting the article says suspicion of the government's figures is longstanding and applied to governments of all colours; somewhat contradicts the usual assumption on here that everything was rosy till Nestor reshuffled Indec

    Jun 02nd, 2012 - 04:15 pm - Link - Report abuse 0
  • Simon68

    6 British_Kirchnerist (#)
    Jun 02nd, 2012 - 04:15 pm

    I think the article is speaking of citizens of all colours rather than governments of all colours.

    Jun 02nd, 2012 - 04:37 pm - Link - Report abuse 0
  • yankeeboy

    Toby, You come across as a buffoon, those posts are ridiculous ,you sound like a monkey who just learned how to talk and wants to looks smart.

    Jun 02nd, 2012 - 05:06 pm - Link - Report abuse 0
  • tobias

    Just as you sound like a buffoon to a 7 year old... it's all a matter of echelons of learning. You are lower to the left of me in the formation, obviously.

    Jun 02nd, 2012 - 05:16 pm - Link - Report abuse 0
  • AmericanLight

    I remember when I travelled down there in 2004 and my wife and I were offered a very large house in a gated community for $150,000 .... You can barely buy a new (and luckily 1,500 sq ft) house without all the things we saw there...
    I inquired again just for investment purposes and the prices had gone up like 3 times...

    Jun 02nd, 2012 - 07:52 pm - Link - Report abuse 0
  • f0rgetit87

    I too made some good money buying property just after the crash.

    Jun 02nd, 2012 - 08:01 pm - Link - Report abuse 0
  • tobias

    @12

    Real estate is not an investment, it is either an expense (in exchange for security of residence), or a somewhat calculated gamble when you are doing activities in markets experiencing housing turmoil.

    Your country is still learning that lesson, to the benefit of others.

    Jun 02nd, 2012 - 08:33 pm - Link - Report abuse 0
  • yankeeboy

    Toby:
    Study: Using big words needlessly makes you seem stupider

    Everyone knows how college students will try to make themselves sound smarter by reaching for the thesaurus and using big, ponderous words they barely understand. But now a new study shows that readers can see through this. Daniel Oppenheimer, a psychologist at Princeton, took a handful of writing samples and used a thesaurus to replace the simple words with needlessly flowery ones.

    http://www.collisiondetection.net/mt/archives/2006/04/study_using_big.php

    It''s like buying an expensive sports car to make up for a small appendage. It makes you look like a fool and everyone knows why you are doing it.

    Jun 02nd, 2012 - 09:17 pm - Link - Report abuse 0
  • tobias

    I'll be more than happy to explain my selection of words in every response I have indited, if you think I “barely understand the words”. I think you will be blown away.

    I'm not using a thesaurus, if you had any honesty you would know that many of the words I use are holophrastic (they convey the meaning of a concept in one word), and you can't look those up in a thesaurus.

    Thesauruses are good for situations like ”instead of using the word 'colorful' (overused), how about another word: oh here, 'chromatic', cool“.

    But how do you look in a thesaurus for a word that replaces ”the prevailing moral and intellectual attitudes of a time period“???

    You know you can't.

    I just happen to know the word ”zeitgeist“, which does exactly that.

    Same with for example 'agitprop', which I used recently. That word means using music or movies to convey a political message. I used that word to describe a country music song AmericanLight pasted.

    How would you find in a thesaurus a word to explain ”agitprop”, if there is no other word.

    Obviously, it proves that I know it because I learned it.

    Jun 02nd, 2012 - 10:11 pm - Link - Report abuse 0
  • yankeeboy

    What a load of manure.

    Jun 02nd, 2012 - 10:19 pm - Link - Report abuse 0
  • tobias

    You sound stupid. You should have said:

    What a load of sh!t.

    Your foray into sequipedalism redounded to your shame.

    Jun 02nd, 2012 - 10:24 pm - Link - Report abuse 0
  • yankeeboy

    whaa whaa you are insufferable. I hope you are just effin with me because if not you have serious problems with you self esteem.

    BTW did you convert your MASSIVE PESOS SAVINGS into U$ yet?

    Jun 02nd, 2012 - 10:34 pm - Link - Report abuse 0
  • Truth_Telling_Troll

    That was good prescribed usage of that term, insufferable, nice. Baby steps, buy steps nontheless.

    I don't see what the problem is with me using a broad vocab. Next time I type a more involved answer I will take the time to indite an excursus expounding why I chose the words I did.

    I don't disclose personal information. I will say this, I never ensconce my eggs into one basket (see, that was a forced usage of a word, and incorrect too).

    Jun 02nd, 2012 - 10:41 pm - Link - Report abuse 0
  • yankeeboy

    Maybe you should read the study I posted above. Maybe then you'll understand why no one takes you seriously here.

    Jun 02nd, 2012 - 11:07 pm - Link - Report abuse 0
  • Truth_Telling_Troll

    @20

    I did... Why should I take a study from a yuppy college seriously? Because he studied in a yuppy college?

    Aha... Isn't this the same premise basically? It's biased perception. They state people with big vocabularies are dissembling, but where is the evidence? It seems more of an instance of prepossessive against high-end vocab than anything else, just like me derogating “fancy” colleges is prepossessive.

    Classic case of transfer. People that don't understand high-level vocabulary feel dumb, so assume that the person using the high vocabulary must be doing so because he feels dumb. That is not very scientific at all.

    I use the words I use for a reason, I don't “swap”. I have studied them for some time...

    I can tell you the difference between debase and abase, slick and sleek, quaff and guzzle, and on and on.

    The key is to know how to use the words. And I mostly do.

    OF COURSE, as with anything, I may not use a world correctly. But guess what, we do it all the time even with the “everyday” common vocabulary, especially in nuncupative circumstnaces.

    Jun 02nd, 2012 - 11:23 pm - Link - Report abuse 0
  • yankeeboy

    You are trying to compare an education from whatever sh!t university you have in Mendoza to Princeton! You are much more than stupid you are insane.

    Jun 02nd, 2012 - 11:47 pm - Link - Report abuse 0
  • Truth_Telling_Troll

    You are so freakn disrespectful. You are a nobody, you can't let a second pass without dissing me, my country, my city, whatever university I go to... You you believe that makes people respect you?

    The only thing you gain is pity. You so try too hard.

    For the record, I was using an analogy in terms of my “prejudice” towards expensive private universities. However, there's been many studies suggessting you do not get your money's worth in them necessarily. Furthermore, as long as you personally study hard and apply yourself, you could go to a university in South Sudan and excel.

    Jun 02nd, 2012 - 11:52 pm - Link - Report abuse 0
  • AmericanLight

    I remember Steve Guttemberg s (Police Academy franchise) playing on this movie on location at Universidad Madera. I guess it was one of these schools like the ones in the Caribbean like Ross, etc. where you can go in for a weekend and come back a surgeon...

    Jun 03rd, 2012 - 12:18 am - Link - Report abuse 0
  • yankeeboy

    Sure hahahaha
    I've seen your best University, UBA. The ceilings are falling down, the class sizes are 500+, graduation rate is abyssal, broken windows, no heat or a/c, exposed live wires, graffiti everywhere, Marxist signs everywhere, no toilet paper or doors in the bathrooms, it is gross AND ITS SUPPOSED TO BE THE BEST YOU HAVE.
    And you try to slam Princeton,,,give me a break. maybe South Sudan U is better than anything you have in Argentina I would have no idea.

    Jun 03rd, 2012 - 12:41 am - Link - Report abuse 0
  • Truth_Telling_Troll

    I slammed your “study”, which is not even such a thing. It is very losely just an “experiment”, closer to a survey.

    UBA is the best of Argentina? Say who, you?

    You are a solipsistic simpleton.

    Jun 03rd, 2012 - 01:14 am - Link - Report abuse 0
  • AmericanLight

    Without trying to offend UBA , when my family and i were living in Argentina I did my high school there and when I graduated I went to UBA s school of dentistry....I had to use the bathroom and had to run to the cafe across the street evade there was no toilet paper. The classes were overloaded. If you were not in the clique you would not pass. Needless to say that was my first year. I told my mom and dad that I was coming back home to go to school . I had to eat 4 years of physics school before I was able to be accepted at Dental School but it was worth it.
    Don't get me wrong k-12 in the US sucks compares to European systems where you can go from high school to dental or med school but at least I didn't have to be someone's friend to graduate. I went to Northwestern State, paid for my on state tuition and it was all good.

    Jun 03rd, 2012 - 01:44 am - Link - Report abuse 0
  • Truth_Telling_Troll

    What I find unnaceptable about the US university system is they fleece the students.Whatever your education cost, it could have been 4 times cheaper. You paid for munificent (unwarranted) proffesorial emoluments/benefits, for needlessly opulent campuses, for arrantly profligate expenditures on sports programs that are not profitable, and for massive trust funds these colleges amass, and rarely use (Harvard has over 100 billion I believe). Sorry, but that is one extreme... you are mortgaging the next generation with massive student debt while these universities become venerable 21sth Knights Templars in terms of wealth.

    Argentina maybe the other extreme. UBA is probably the worst public university in Argentina. But let me give a simple example as to how numbers can be distorted by people like yankeeboy:

    He claimed the graduation rate is abysmal. Actually, that is true when we take the numbers face value. Of course being the simpleton he is, he leaves the story at that and refuses to offer even a semblance of analysis. Allow me to do so:

    Public universities in Argentina are irrestrictive admission. The only nation on EARTH, and UBA in particular. What does that mean? It means if you graduate from high school, you have a birth in 1st year classes. This doesn't occur in any other country. Not in the capitalist USA, not in communist Cuba or North Korea, not socialist Europe. Argentine is the lone example.

    As a result, and surprise surprise, the dropout rate on the 1st year is massive. That is not the result of bad teaching (though I will admit that independent of this the quality is not the best at UBA), but obvious statistical reality. You have many high schoolers chancing it, and they don't make it.

    That fact singlehandedly accounts for the supposed abysmal graduation rate of 20% (compared to 65% in the USA, 69% in Europe), since the base student body from which graduates emerge is far larger than your countries.

    Jun 03rd, 2012 - 02:07 am - Link - Report abuse 0
  • AmericanLight

    Here I Louisiana all of us who hold college degrees are a small minority...
    11.16 pct have a bachelors degree...
    These are the US values
    Educational attainment in the United States, Age 25 and Over (2011)[2]
    Education Percentage
    High school graduate 87.58%
    Some college 56.86%
    Associate's and/or Bachelor's degree 39.89%
    Bachelor's degree 30.44%
    Master's degree 7.95%
    Doctorate or professional degree 3.00%

    Jun 03rd, 2012 - 02:39 am - Link - Report abuse 0
  • Truth_Telling_Troll

    I will admit I like the competition-based system in the US terciary, though I like the irrestrictive aspect of Argentine universities in their 1st year.

    The best of both worlds would be colleges that allow everyone with high school degrees to attend 1st half-year classes, and if they prove to be great students then help finance the studies. It has been proven that many people are not good test takers, which is why I disagree with the US/European system of admissions that over-relies on testing (which is like taking a picture of you at a specific time, you could be photogenic or not, you could have been put together or just out of bed... it is a very unreliable measure of capability, which is why IQ tests are not taken as a defining factor to assess intelligence either).

    I am a great test taker because I have a knack or 6th sense about what to study. That means nothing when it comes to my capability as a student.

    Jun 03rd, 2012 - 02:48 am - Link - Report abuse 0
  • AmericanLight

    You can pass the sat or act and be in.... That's true ... Many times with a Ged

    Jun 03rd, 2012 - 03:01 am - Link - Report abuse 0
  • yankeeboy

    28.
    Toby, so what are the names of the great Mendoza Universities? Can you post a link of their Int'l rankings? Or don't you believe those either?
    How you spew such utter b/s is unbelievable, I seriously hope you don't believe yourself and are just screwing with us. If you truly believe even 10% of the nonsense you post you need psychological help.

    Jun 03rd, 2012 - 12:22 pm - Link - Report abuse 0
  • ChrisR

    26 AmericanLight

    So what happened to your BS in Physics, if you are a dentist now, or was that just BS?

    Jun 03rd, 2012 - 12:27 pm - Link - Report abuse 0
  • yankeeboy

    AL is as American as I am Argentinian or Guzz Uruguayan. All made up nonsense.

    Jun 03rd, 2012 - 12:31 pm - Link - Report abuse 0
  • Marcos Alejandr0

    I was able to make some good deals after the crash. I just offered a bit more than all the Americans and British coming in. They were only too happy to deal with one of their own than you guys.

    Jun 03rd, 2012 - 12:48 pm - Link - Report abuse 0
  • yankeeboy

    34. If you offered more than the foreigners you were pretty stupid. In 2001-2003 the foreigners were supporting the BA property market. I was getting calls daily to buy one thing or another. Most of the property was inherited with high fees and taxes and the heir couldn't afford to keep it. I got some great deals but I sold it all when the market started getting crazy. I may have to dip my toe in again people are going to be crazy to get their mitts on some U$.

    Jun 03rd, 2012 - 01:32 pm - Link - Report abuse 0
  • AmericanLight

    BS in Physics is hanging on the wall. I had to take the DAT to be accepted into LSU s school of dentistry. Getting Ito dental and studying was not an issue but needed some cash.
    While I was doing that I was working for a large retailer as a manager
    ... Well I promoted and promoted until I became a store mgr, director an so on.
    Their home office is located in Bentonville AR, a couple of years back I was recruited to be a general director for another retailer on the furniture business and last year was recruited from there by the Bentonville guy s competitor s from Hoffman Estates Il.
    The physics degree has been good to do financial analysis. Some day I may license as a dentist. So far so good with my current job.

    Yankeeboy.. Most of the times I doubt the origins of people here... But I don't care about asking. I am no better than anyone else by being American. If I were Australian I would say it or Uruguayan or Bolivian.
    As far as I know you could be some guy from Uruguay who watches the clients list ,90210, or another show and is taking clues of our lifestyle (I am not sure what American shows play there)
    Hey no offense though you can be from wherever you are but if I am not where I say I am I don't know why my two children are speaking English to me right this second asking me to plug in their Xbox ...:-)...by the way school is out for the summer...lots of attention needed...

    Jun 03rd, 2012 - 03:32 pm - Link - Report abuse 0
  • Truth_Telling_Troll

    @31

    You can't stop yourself can't you my homunculus cyber fiend. Tell you what... list me all the Chinese/Indian collegues in your completely biased and ethnocentric western rankings... Not many.

    Yet they are the ones producing all the engineers and software geniouses, not the USA. That shows you how useful your useless rankings are.

    As usual you are quibbling and prevaricating being the simpleton that you are. You want to corner me by suggesting that if you don't go to Princeton or any such university, then your education will be poor. You are a disgusting cyber-patriciate who looks down on everyone not of your nationality, rank, education, financial position, or political views. Which means in real life you likely amount to nada.

    Education is what you make of it to a large extent, you can protest and bewail all the livelong day, human determination is the greatest equalizer and factor in success, not the name of the college you attend or the passport you hold... which is all you have since your personal accomplishements are nugatory.

    Jun 03rd, 2012 - 04:07 pm - Link - Report abuse 0
  • ChrisR

    36 AmericanLight

    There are undoubtedly areas of confusion here.

    You say that in the UK you can go from High School (what is laughingly known as 'Comprehensive Education in the UK') direct to med school or dentist school. This is the case BUT you need several A Levels to do so because these 'schools' are in fact Universities. It would seem your BS is a mid-way qualification between A Levels and a Bachelors Degree in the UK.

    Nowadays, having a Bachelor of Science Degree from a UK University allows you to enter a Professional Organisation, such as the Institute of Mechanical Engineers BUT to become Chartered (the same as Registered in the USA) requires a Masters Degree AND a number of years of field experience.

    I am a retired Professional Electrical Mechanical Engineer, living in Uruguay.

    Jun 03rd, 2012 - 04:19 pm - Link - Report abuse 0
  • Marcos Alejandr0

    I support my country unlike you who rapes it.

    Jun 03rd, 2012 - 04:24 pm - Link - Report abuse 0
  • yankeeboy

    36. You must be the only Dentist with a Physics degree working at a NOLA Walmart. Your family must be proud.

    Jun 03rd, 2012 - 04:43 pm - Link - Report abuse 0
  • AmericanLight

    Well to be honest with you, being under 30 and a Walmart Store Mgr pulling 6 digit bonuses every year and also behaving like a responsible citizen make a lot of people proud. How many self made people you know (in person) that can tell you this? Let me save you some time doing numbers Store Mgr salary for a wm over 80 million is 104,000 per year and the top bonus is 115 percent over that salary. Do the math, do you think I want to be pulling teeth and paying 25,000 plus a year in insurance premiums to make maybe 120 to 160 ( luckily and in these times maybe)
    I left walmart in 2010 and joined different organizations . I work for the other guys doing a similar slightly higher job now.
    ChrisB:
    You are totally right I had forgotten about the A levels.
    Bachelors degrees include accounting, business administration , chemistry , physics. Law school( 3 years) requires for instance , a bachelors degree. You can be accepted ( according to the schools) to dentistry, medical, law an other s hooks with just the first two years of the bachelors ( I have rarely seen this happening)
    Universities here are called simple colleges . We call universities to the entire organization that holds colleges and specialty schools
    There are several engineering degrees in America. They are a bachelor level, however many schools do not teach the entire curriculum, having many people doing the first two years (core) and then seeking for a school that specializes in engineering. The degree levels available in the US are associate (2 yrs ), bachelors (4 years with levels 1000 through 4000 classes, freshman 1000,Sophmore 2000,Junior 3000, Senior 4000), masters (levels 5000 to 6000), Phd (7000-8000), professional schools such as MD, Dentisty, OD, Law, etc.
    To be accepted into college(university) you Muy generally pass either the SAT or ACT and hold a high school degree or GED.

    Jun 03rd, 2012 - 06:26 pm - Link - Report abuse 0
  • Truth_Telling_Troll

    Ah, the internet. Where everyone is Adonis, takes weekend trips to London and Milan, has a retinue of servants and toadies, Phd's in Electrical engineering, Investing and Physics, travel all over the world, and make no less than a digit followed by 5 other digits.

    Thank goodness I'm just a poor student with no degree yet, not European nor Adonis, haven't traveled in a few years, and make a banausic salary (if I work at all).

    Just your average Jose. Except I have massive levels of learning.

    Jun 03rd, 2012 - 06:31 pm - Link - Report abuse 0
  • AmericanLight

    Yankee
    Well to be honest with you, being under 30 and a Walmart Store Mgr pulling 6 digit bonuses every year and also behaving like a responsible citizen, a good husband and father who can provide for his family make a lot of people proud. Sadly my mother did not live to see the man I have become. Let me save you some time doing numbers Store Mgr salary for a wm over 80 million is 104,000 per year and the top bonus is 115 percent over that salary. Do the math, do you think I want to be pulling teeth and paying 25,000 plus a year in insurance premiums to make maybe 120 to 160 ( luckily and in these times maybe) .
    I left walmart in 2010 and joined different organizations . I work for the other guys doing a similar slightly higher job now.
    ChrisB:
    You are totally right I had forgotten about the A levels.
    Bachelors degrees include accounting, business administration , chemistry , physics. Law school( 3 years) requires for instance , a bachelors degree. You can be accepted ( according to the schools) to dentistry, medical, law an other s hooks with just the first two years of the bachelors ( I have rarely seen this happening)
    Universities here are called simple colleges . We call universities to the entire organization that holds colleges and specialty schools
    There are several engineering degrees in America. They are a bachelor level, however many schools do not teach the entire curriculum, having many people doing the first two years (core) and then seeking for a school that specializes in engineering. The degree levels available in the US are associate (2 yrs ), bachelors (4 years with levels 1000 through 4000 classes, freshman 1000,Sophmore 2000,Junior 3000, Senior 4000), masters (levels 5000 to 6000), Phd (7000-8000), professional schools such as MD, Dentisty, OD, Law, etc.
    To be accepted into college(university) you Muy generally pass either the SAT or ACT and hold a high school degree or GED.

    Jun 03rd, 2012 - 06:33 pm - Link - Report abuse 0

Commenting for this story is now closed.
If you have a Facebook account, become a fan and comment on our Facebook Page!