MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency
As copper prices slide, the US dollar in Chile climbs to its highest value since 2003
The US dollar reaffirmed its value in the Chilean money exchange market during the first week of the year, trading in the commercial sector at an average of 728 Pesos, almost at its highest level of 735 twelve years ago, 31 March 2003. Read full article
Comments
Disclaimer & comment rulesYep Chile is screwed they have all their eggs in one basket.
Jan 12th, 2016 - 01:47 am - Link - Report abuse 0Still the girls are great kissers and very sociable!
I have a few stories from Santiago lol.
Great time to offer free University to Socialist/Marxists layabouts.
Jan 12th, 2016 - 01:53 am - Link - Report abuse 0Progs are so stupid.
They squander all the years of hard work that conservatives have done.
@1 Not exactly all the eggs but most of them. Something like 60 percent of the value of exports though only about 20 percent of GDP. But hard economic times and a thoroughly incompetent present government spell trouble for Chile.
Jan 12th, 2016 - 03:32 am - Link - Report abuse 0I don't know what anyone sees in Santiasco. It's expensive, rude (mostly the lolos and the omnipresent flaites) , dirty, overcrowded, contaminated [mostly air] , riddled with graffiti and pickpockets, incompetent, awash in cheap but overpriced chinese junk, and bereft of anything interesting. If you want to eat well you have to find a Peruvian restaurant because the chilenos don't know how to cook or even how to present a proper plate of food.
Seems the exchange rate is doing what the market wants.
Jan 12th, 2016 - 10:11 am - Link - Report abuse 0Dropping will increase the cost of imports and simulate exports and import substitution.
@3 I agree with you that Santiago is somewhat unattractive. I remember arriving in the city many years ago and the first impression was that the streets are a lot cleaning than Buenos Aires. But the air is polluted not because of the cars which are generally newer than in Argentina but because the air is trapped by the mountains. I am sure you know that.
Jan 12th, 2016 - 10:35 am - Link - Report abuse 0When I arrived, wanting to get into the mindset of the average Chilean I picked up a tourism leaflet to see how they portray themselves and in the first paragraph I read this “Most people associate Santiago with pollution, stress and depression but it is so much more than that”. Hahaha. Such a contrast from over the Andes where you can be standing on a dog-shit covered pavement with buses belching black soot and someone trying to pick your wallet and the Argentines will be telling you you are in paradise.
You are right that the average Chilean does not have a sophisticated palate when it comes to food but I have had some great food there. Both in the Mom and Pop restaurants and in the very best you can find. I confess I spend only the time I have to in Santiago because the real beauty of Chile starts when you leave that city. I should add that food-wise I have had great and really terrible food in Argentina too, minus the shovel of salt the Chileans love.
Chile has diversified the economy but is still very dependent on copper. The good news is they have nowhere near exploited their other industries and this slump might be the impetus to do so. They just need to shake off the glass-half-empty mentality.
It is a great time for non copper exporters. In wine and tourism there aren't enough hours in the day. We are in overdrive.
Jan 12th, 2016 - 11:03 am - Link - Report abuse 0@2
Give credit where due. The “Progs” implemented counter-cyclical measures at the start of the commodities boom.
@3
Santiago expensive? “omnipresent flaites”?
What are you? A backpacker staying in a hostel down by the bus station?
If you want to eat well, stop being so tight and book a table at a good restaurant (try Ambrosía, Boragó or 99) or if you appreciate the rustic drive to the coast to the many fishing villages where you will find simple magnificent seafood.
@4
Exactly.
@5
My glass is always full full.
Yes, Santiasco is expensive. And becoming more so with the growing levels of inflation effects. World food prices in general are in decline but over the past year in Chile, food prices have increased over 7 percent. Chile generally produces good quality food products but almost nobody knows how to cook. I am reminded of the cookery in postwar New Zealand, which was uniformly bad. Seafood? North American retailers are turning away from Chilean salmon-flavoured antibiotics. The coastal waters around the V Región are becoming so polluted that I hesitate to eat what comes out of them. Years ago, I used to enjoy my locos, but no more. And Valpo literally stinks, no doubt the result of the loose dogs that outnumber the human population. I have never seen a sullied city in Letrine America so fouled by dogs as Valpo.
Jan 12th, 2016 - 12:15 pm - Link - Report abuse 0And yes, Santiasco is the undisputed realm of the flaite. Doquiera que vayas. Las Condes used to be a decent place to live but lately it's become a regular crime scene. Huge crime increases lately in Vitacura. I had some real estate investments in Ñuñoa but got rid of them when I realised that the poor quality of the construction was going to lead to large operational costs and diminishing returns. Debí haber exigido una explicación.
@7
Jan 12th, 2016 - 12:59 pm - Link - Report abuse 0In latest breaking news from Marti: the oceans are polluted, ports smell bad and there is crime in capital cities - shock!
...and in Marti construction weekly we look at the poor quality construction in one of the oldest parts of one of the world's most seismical active cities and ask why it hasn't fallen down.
Once again hate and contempt comes across in your posts. You try to mask it but it seeps through. What does it come from?
@6 Cheers.
Jan 12th, 2016 - 01:04 pm - Link - Report abuse 0@7 As I said before, I have had good and bad food in both Argentina and Chile. That Chileans don't know how to cook it a massive generalisation. The majority have a very limited palate but I found that to be true in Argentina too. So many restaurants in BsAs have virtually identical menus, mostly Italian influenced or steak for the tourists. Not the wonderful variety of Italian food you find in the different regions of Italy either, but pasta, pasts, pasta. Interestingly the Peruvian restaurants don't seem to survive in Buenos Aires, why do you think that is?
It is very stance that you pick out crime increases in Chile when insecurity has gone through the roof in Argentina.
I canot imagine where you hung out in Chile but it doesn't reflect my experiences there at all.
I had a great time visiting Chile. Santiago is not Buenos Aires but it is as nice as most of the other SoAm capitals none of which are very spectacular.
Jan 12th, 2016 - 01:08 pm - Link - Report abuse 0I also had the best grilled Lamb in my life.
I still remember it.
Chilenos are smart, Prog Gov't don't do well in recessions so I imagine everything will work itself out in the next elections.
@ 6 Condorito who writes: “if you appreciate the rustic drive to the coast to the many fishing villages where you will find simple magnificent seafood.”
Jan 12th, 2016 - 02:37 pm - Link - Report abuse 0Those who think Chilenos can't cook don't know what they are talking about. We who have lived there know otherwise.
Oh god, Reineta Margarita - the gods are willing to kill to get a serving.
They are right that Santiago is shitty and polluted, but e.g. La Serena, Valdivia, Puerto Varas, Viña, etc. are delicious towns to stay or live in.
If mayonnaise were to disappear, Chile would starve.
Jan 12th, 2016 - 03:34 pm - Link - Report abuse 0@12 Yep thats what I remember eating for breakfast along with the Chilenos.
Jan 12th, 2016 - 06:38 pm - Link - Report abuse 0Crappy hotdogs covered in mayo and some green goop.
@ 12 Marti Llazo: “If mayonnaise were to disappear, Chile would starve.”
Jan 12th, 2016 - 08:08 pm - Link - Report abuse 0You have never been to Chile, or you would know that the staple food is boiled brown beans.
@ 13 Klingon :“Yep thats what I remember eating for breakfast along with the Chilenos.”
How did the Chilenos taste? :)
“Crappy hotdogs covered in mayo and some green goop”
Never saw one during the years I lived in Chile. Lots of delicious food. Perhaps you should find some other Chilean acquaintances.
In my garden I had paltas (avocados), figs, some 15 different veggies, my neighbour supplied fresh eggs daily, and my mucama knew how to bake different types of delicious bread. All kinds of seafood are abundant. The best wines are never exported (as opposed to Argentina), but consumed in Chile.
I have to wonder with whom some of you guys hung out in Chile. Completos for breakfast? I never came across that.
Jan 12th, 2016 - 09:04 pm - Link - Report abuse 0And why choose mayonnaise? There are whole aisles devoted to mayo in Argentine supermarkets.
You need to work a bit harder with the insults.
@14 @ 12 Marti Llazo: “If mayonnaise were to disappear, Chile would starve.”
Jan 12th, 2016 - 09:44 pm - Link - Report abuse 0You have never been to Chile, or you would know that the staple food is boiled brown beans.
-----------
Actually I went to Chile in the 1970s and wrote the first of many magazine articles on Chile at that time. The first client was a division of Columbia Broadcasting. One of my last clients was, ironically, SERNATUR.
If you had ever been to Chile you would know that of the South American countries, Chile has the highest per capita consumption of mayonnaise, something that is a bit of a joke there among the foodies (and nutritionists dealing with the plague of morbid obesity that has made Chile the worst in South America in that category, due to unhealthy eating and overwhelmingly sedentary lifestyle).
You can't get a decent hamburger in either country.
Jan 12th, 2016 - 09:58 pm - Link - Report abuse 0Why oh why do they freeze the patties?
Then for gosh sakes they throw an egg on top.
Yuck.
@17 That reminds me of another of the many wonders of cucina chilensis: the hamburguesa. And what YB described is the “a lo pobre” option and yes, it's an option, YB. French fries, fried onions, and a fried egg. You can get anything “a lo pobre.” Filete a lo pobre, salmón a lo pobre, El Mercurio a lo pobre, seguro obligatorio de accidentes personales a lo pobre, and so forth.
Jan 13th, 2016 - 01:08 am - Link - Report abuse 0Those who have tried hamburguesas in Chile know that the attempt to copy real hamburgers has been largely a criollo failure, sort of the nutritional equivalent of the CONAF. In fact the chileno attempt to produce a “sandwich” shows the characteristic inability to grasp and integrate fundamental design features that are readily understood by most of the higher primates.
For those unfamiliar with the concept, hamburgers and other sandwiches are intended to picked up with the hands for the purpose of eating them.
In Chile, one does not pick up a hamburger or other sandwich with anything but a forklift, but instead the eater receives a greasy knife and bent fork for the purpose of cutting the thing up and spilling the pieces onto the plastic tablecloth. The sandwich bread, if it can be called that, is a tasteless bleached composite made of some sort of refined pinus radiata sawdust that was never intended nor certified to be used around food products for human consumption, but featuring more than 7000 calories per gram.
Perhaps one of the apologists in attendance could invent a bit of plausible chamullo to explain why a hamburger in Chile is designed contrary to its christian purpose.
@18 Why do you hate Chile? Why do you feel the need to make ridiculous generalisations? Where do you go to eat to get 'greasy knives and bent forks'?
Jan 13th, 2016 - 11:15 am - Link - Report abuse 0I am reminded of the occasion when I asked in Chile why they never indulged in the ritual of the Mate and shared bombilla? I was told it was because they could afford to have one cup each rather than having to share one. :) This rivalry is rather amusing from the outside and the jokes great.
I can't really understand why anyone would want to eat a hamburger.
@18 “ I am reminded of the occasion when I asked in Chile why they never indulged in the ritual of the Mate and shared bombilla? ”
Jan 13th, 2016 - 12:35 pm - Link - Report abuse 0---------
If you don't know that drinking/sharing hierba is common in Chile, particularly in the south, then you have much to learn about this country, its customs and its practices.
Perhaps the first gringo error is believing that Santiasco/RM is Chile. And of course the stuffed shirt pompous santiasguinos, que se creen la raja dondequiera que vayan, will put their snotty little noses into the air and tell you only the lowest of bumpkin rotos en las regiones drink that stuff. But if you ever visit Chile, the real Chile, go to a Unimarc and see how many types of hierba are on the shelves. It's not there as decoration.
@19 “ I can't really understand why anyone would want to eat a hamburger.”
Ah, then you truly do not understand Chile.
@ 16 Marti Llazo,
Jan 13th, 2016 - 01:56 pm - Link - Report abuse 0if you could read, you would have known that I have lived in Chile for several years.
# 14 “during the years I lived in Chile”
@ Spankingboy who couldn't “get a decent hamburger in either country”
Unable to get a decent hamburger in “the best restaurants, in the best hotels, in the best clubs”?
Why would anyone want a hamburger, when food is available?
I totally agree with ElaineB's “This rivalry is rather amusing from the outside and the joke's great.” which reminds me of an Argentine friend, who told me that he doesn't like Chile. “How many times have you been to Chile?” answer: “I have never been to Chile”.
@20 Marti
Jan 13th, 2016 - 02:11 pm - Link - Report abuse 0Drinking coffee here is common.
Drinking tea here is common.
Drinking mate here is uncommon.
Point gun at foot ... pull trigger.
“if you ever visit Chile, the real Chile, go to a Unimarc”
... and pull trigger again.
Every Country has their quirks...
Jan 13th, 2016 - 03:21 pm - Link - Report abuse 0I fell about laughing the first time in the States that I saw Yanks take their knife and fork..cut up the food into little pieces, then discard the knife and eat it with just the fork...like a shovel..
I thought why don't they eat it as they cut it....
No one's perfect....
@22 You should get out of your little gated and myopic enclave in Santiasco (and away from your No Es Café) and see how the people live in the regions. On the farms, on the estancias, the towns, the islands. Yes, I know, the regions to the south are peopled by ignorant rotos, unfit for congress with the cuico culture...
Jan 13th, 2016 - 04:04 pm - Link - Report abuse 0Article from a couple of years ago (El Mercurio) concerning the consumption of mate
En el sur del país, el consumo de mate es un fenómeno popular y cultural que se transmite de generación en generación. Pero lo novedoso de esta infusión está ocurriendo en Santiago y alrededores.....Según cifras de la Cámara de Comercio de Santiago (CCS), las internaciones de yerba mate a Chile subieron 61%, alcanzando US$ 5,6 millones entre enero y abril de 2013, frente a igual lapso de 2012. Argentina, en tanto, abastece con el 63% de la producción (US$ 3,5 millones) y el restante 36% proviene de Brasil (US$ 2 millones)
@24 toni
Jan 13th, 2016 - 04:21 pm - Link - Report abuse 0I'm born and reside in la 4ta región.
... don't stop shooting those big clown feet of yours.
Dance clown, dance!
@25 Of course you don't know what “going to a Unimarc” means. It's the chilean expression equivalent of a North American's “going to the Safeway.” Going to the grocery/the shops. But you chilean cuicos have no idea what that means. That's what the nana is for, to do the shopping (perdón, asesora del hogar, para no ofender vuestras delicadas sensibilidades). And if you don't lower yourself enough to do a bit of shopping with the commoners, there is little hope that you know much about the country beyond Cuicolandia.
Jan 13th, 2016 - 04:50 pm - Link - Report abuse 0@26 Captain Obvious, we cracked the code. Your intel is just wrong.
Jan 13th, 2016 - 05:29 pm - Link - Report abuse 0I have been to Chilean supermarkets and Argentinean. I have spend a lot of time in the rural areas of both countries. Condorito is Chilean but you seem to want us to believe only your opinion counts whilst making obvious ill-informed comments. You seem to have a huge inferiority complex. I'll ask again, what have you got against Chile?
@26
Jan 13th, 2016 - 06:16 pm - Link - Report abuse 0...and toni unloads another chamber in to his feet...
“going to a Unimarc” means going to the shops!
Yeah, only if someone is inventing colloquialisms.
bang!
Condorito lives in Valle de Elqui or in La Serena, wonderful places - I lived 6 months in Paihuano and another 6 in La Serena, after I left Valdivia and before I moved to Viña.
Jan 13th, 2016 - 06:34 pm - Link - Report abuse 0For the benefit of condorito and others unfamiliar with grocery shopping in chilito, Unimarc is one of the best known chains in the country, with at least one outlet in about half the comunas there and about 100 in the RM. Their smaller outlets have become significant in some Chilean communities not large enough to rate an hiper.
Jan 13th, 2016 - 08:00 pm - Link - Report abuse 0For condorcito to pretend he doesn't know what a Unimarc is would be not unlike someone from the US admitting they don't know what a Safeway is, or someone from the UK being puzzled by the mention of Tesco's. ¡plop!
@30 I don't see the point you are trying to make. Condorito is talking about colloquialisms not whether the supermarkets exist. Did you miss that?
Jan 13th, 2016 - 08:18 pm - Link - Report abuse 0You still haven't answered my question. What is your beef with Chile?
@ 31 ElaineB who doesn't see the point this Marti Llazo chap is trying to make - neither do I.
Jan 13th, 2016 - 09:30 pm - Link - Report abuse 0Yes, Unimarc is probably the largest and unduly expensive supermarket chain in Chile, which markets itself as a gourmet market, but those days are gone. Today you couldn't tell Unimarc products from what you find in e.g. Santa Isabel, albeit at Unimarc you'll encounter slightly higher prices.
Unimarc in 2015 offers ordinary supermarket articles, catering for people who like to waste their money on good, but not first class produce.
We in the know buy veggies from the growers at the small local markets, seafood straight off the boats. We have our favourite suppliers who appreciate our business.
@toni
Jan 13th, 2016 - 09:31 pm - Link - Report abuse 0It’s no good trying to cover it with distraction and bluster.. it’s up there @20 for all to see. Declaring that perhaps the first gringo error is believing that Santiago/RM is Chile then proceeding to direct Elaine to Unimarc to see evidence of “real Chile”. Oops! :(
Actually this regrettably started with the uninformed representation that hierba mate is absent in Chile, followed by an equally regrettable series of attempts to point out that yes, there is significant consumption of hierba mate and there is evidence of that consumption being more than casual and isolated, since it is carried in the Unimarcs (note that if I had mentioned Lider someone would have said, oh, Lider, well, they sell Walmart branded stuff so we can't even consider such a dastardly place). Perhaps a restatement of the matter could be this: most people north of Peor es Nada have no idea of what goes on in southern Chile, which might just as well be a foreign country or distant planet to norteños -- be it what they drink or how they pronounce “po.” And yes, there are regional differences in that as well. Just like “'pilchas” means one thing in the north but in the extreme south of Chile it's the kit that ranges from tools to food, that you load on a pilchero, a pack-horse. But ask a northerner and they will say no, that's impossible, not admitted or admissible to their range of experience.
Jan 14th, 2016 - 12:53 am - Link - Report abuse 0Likewise many in the north don't even understand that in much of the south there are no practical opportunities for “small local markets, seafood straight off the boats” and that is why shops like Unimarc provide an unacknowledged benefit in the regions since the alternatives are often even more expensive and/or lacking in variety and even sufficient supply. If you have that option, for independent sellers and fresh products, great, enjoy it. But don't assume that this is the way it is everywhere. That assumption is one of the many reasons that norteños are drawn with cloven hooves by their southern brethren.
No one should be surprised that similar region-to-region/province-to-province ignorance and disdain are found in a lot of places and yes, over here bonarenses are widely regarded as extraterrestrials from the Río Negro on south.
@34 What is your problem with Chile?
Jan 14th, 2016 - 10:25 am - Link - Report abuse 0TWIMC
Jan 14th, 2016 - 05:22 pm - Link - Report abuse 0Interesting thread this one...
Here we have four of our most diligent resident Anglo Turnips (Klingon, Yankiboy, Martillazo and ElaineB) trashing Chile this time...
With their stupid Anglo preconcepts about local details and quirks...
And, of course, their stupid Anglo haughtiness...
(ElaineB is the worst of the lot... Pretending to defend Chile..., she confirms the others commonplaces by telling us, in every post, that in Argentina things are even worst...)
Geeeee.... those turnipy Anglo Ex-Pats and long term visitors remind me more and more to them Muslim Paper Jihadists residing in Europe and the USA that constantly critisize and trash each and every aspect of their host Countries societies whilst usufructing on their hospitality...
Fuerza Condorito, hermanito shileno...;-)
@36 Hello old Think,
Jan 14th, 2016 - 05:33 pm - Link - Report abuse 0No I wasn't trashing Chile or Argentina. I was pointing out that people in glass houses etc. It whooshed over your head as usual.
Shouldn't you be indulging in your favourite pastimes?
Anglo Turnipette at (37)
Jan 14th, 2016 - 06:06 pm - Link - Report abuse 0So... You were “pointing out” to Mr. Marti Llazo..., an Anglo Ex-Pat residing in Patagonia and trashing, at every given opportuniry, anything about what he so lovely calls “Latrine-America, that ”People in glass houses etc”... by trashing Argentina?
@38 You are rambling again.
Jan 14th, 2016 - 06:17 pm - Link - Report abuse 0I was not trashing either country. Are you a bit lonely and looking for attention?
Don't flirt with me, Anglo Turnipette...
Jan 14th, 2016 - 06:26 pm - Link - Report abuse 0I'm not into cougars...
@40 Oh, we all remember you telling us what you are in to. How you like to sniff women's crotches and play with your own shit. You described it in great detail.
Jan 14th, 2016 - 06:36 pm - Link - Report abuse 0Don't insist, Anglo Turnipette...
Jan 14th, 2016 - 07:00 pm - Link - Report abuse 0A no is a no..
Shrinkbrain of Chewbut, pleas jump into the inodoro and pull the string. You are exposing your failing perceptual ability.
Jan 14th, 2016 - 08:26 pm - Link - Report abuse 0Commenting for this story is now closed.
If you have a Facebook account, become a fan and comment on our Facebook Page!