From Wall Street to Main Street to Florida Street: Argentina and the Financial Crisis

Before I begin this blogpost I should probably say that I don't like the fact that our current economic situation is called a "crisis." I think that assumes that there is a very big problem that will be solved and return our economy to normal. Even if things get better, however, they won't return to normal. As the Wall Street Journal so depressively said, while our economy will eventually bounce back, this is the end of Wall Street as we know it. (Does that also mean the end of the Wall Street Journal as we know it?) That's why I prefer "financial shake-up." It also sounds more fun:

Shake-up! the Musical, new this season from Mel Brooks.

George Clooney stars as Ben Bernanke in... Shake-up! Coming soon to a theater near you.

Anyway, throughout this whole ordeal - the glaring New York Times headlines, striking drops in the stock market, the nail-biting vote in the House, - I was thinking "how come I don't hear more about this in Argentina?"

The shake-up! began almost two weeks, but until today neither my host family nor peers had asked me anything; Yahoo Argentina news had only a couple articles about it. The crisis was supposed to be global...so why did the Argentines seem totally ok with it?

I did some research. I visited a number of Argentinean newspapers' websites and checked their coverage and editorials. Here's what I found:

The Argentines don't really see this as a crisis. To them, it's just, well, a shake-up!

See, unlike us relatively stable Americans, the Argentines are quite accustomed to crises. If you look at their presidential history, its one military coups after another. In 2001, there were five presidents in the course of one week. The train workers seem to always be on strike; if they're not, it's the teachers union, and if not them, the airline union. Lehman Brothers? AIG? Business as usual. Sure, the Argentinean stock market is down. But that happens! One Argentine at tonight's Rotary meeting told me: "This country is always in a crisis, but don't worry...we're still alive!"

The Argentines who are actually working on Wall Street or other major financial centers said that because of the Argentine experience, they always have a Plan B. Wall Street could crumble, but they've got an escape route.

I asked my host father Ricardo this morning about how the financial crisis directly affects him, as the owner of a trucking company that deals in the transportation in grains. He explained it to me as such: trading in the cereal industry is centered in Chicago; if the U.S. is in trouble, so is the international cereal trade.

I've heard a lot about how the shake-up is adversely affecting small-business owners all throughout America. The media forgot to mention the small-business owners in Argentinean farmlands.

SHAKE-UP! coming soon

PS as for the title: Florida Street is one of the biggest in Buenos Aires, filled with fancy stores and the rich Argentines and foreigners who shop there. Madonna sings about it in one of the opening scenes of Evita, (but I would stop watching there, because the rest of the movie is absolutely horrible and sometimes downright disturbing. See: military coups and children's deaths set to rock and roll sung by Antonio Banderas).

If it were a comedy...