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You did give me the idea Mike, and then kept giving me reasons to go back!

Thanks for these lists. Kind of surprised Sottovoce didn't make any of them, I loved that place. Ate there three times during my visit.

Another great thread for a foreigner like me with no on-the-ground knowledge. I gained a lot of insights here into how Argentina's economy actually works (or doesn't :)) and why companies are so desperate to exit despite Milei's reforms.

We kind of looked at it the same way Jon. To own stocks there long term you have to believe the turnaround is real, otherwise you need to be a market timer or good at picking winners and losers. Real estate though was cheap and it cash flowed, which is unique for a big cosmopolitan city, plus...

This is a really interesting thread. I have a thirty thousand foot view of Argentina's economy from watching it over the years but zero on-the-ground knowledge, so I learned an awful lot here. It was inevitable that Argentina's economy would hit the wall, you just never knew when or how it...

Of course it felt better under Kirchner, they were spending way beyond the country's means. Inevitably they hit the wall when nobody would lend to them anymore and the printing presses caused inflation to skyrocket. This is the hangover and it's not going to pass quickly or easily.

Makes a lot of sense. Argentina never had any competitive edge in tires, nor most other things under protectionism. One thing that really stood out during my visit was the dichotomy of prices. Things like property, ubers and food were extraordinarily cheap whereas clothes, cars etc were...

You may be right Avocado but it's very hard to know. We typically don't learn the true scale of corruption until long after an administration is gone. Still... $10 billion is a lot to steal out of an economy the size of Argentina's, and Milei will have the IMF breathing down his neck.

There's no excusing the ongoing corruption in Argentina, but Milei's administration has a long ways to go before joining the leagues of Kirchner and Chavez. The Kirchners' accountant testified they stole about $10 billion, and here's a snapshot of the surreal level of corruption under Chavez:

Amazing job Mike, I'm sure it will be a huge hit!

It's based on how much you paid in and for how long. I believe the calculation is based on your highest 35 years of earnings starting from age 22 to when you pull the trigger on SS. To get the maximum you have to have earned $176k for 2026, which is inflation adjusted so earlier years are...

I suspect a big part of that is just economic decay. A lot of rot can set in over 25 years when your government has been making questionable decisions going back decades.

Of course not, it went up. Michigan tuition is $64k for freshman/sophomore and $68.5k for junior/senior, so it averages $66.25k. But those numbers will keep going up as your child goes to school, and including books and room & board you're probably looking at $400k for undergrad. That is for...

Agreed Betsy. Last year the University of Michigan closed it's Office of Diversity, Equity & Inclusion after an expose showed they had over 160 administrators. Think of the annual cost of 160 people with salaries, healthcare, pension plans, office costs etc. And that is just for DEI which is...

I wish they were referring to the number of teachers, at least kids would be getting a great education there :) That figure is just for administrators, which are the bureaucrats of universities. The number of administrators at US colleges has absolutely exploded the past 20 years, and tuition...

https://students.bowdoin.edu/bowdoin-review/features/death-by-a-thousand-emails-how-administrative-bloat-is-killing-american-higher-education/

Congrats Mike and Wally! I feel your pain with a college freshman and one heading there next year. One of the problems with tuition is you have these consultants running around telling every school they can charge more because they might only be in the 2nd or 3rd quartile relative to peers...

https://www.cnbc.com/2026/02/09/hong-kong-media-tycoon-democracy-activist-jimmy-lai-sentenced-imprisonment.html Trust is something China just doesn't understand, it's one step forward two steps back.

The latest theory on de-dollarization: https://www.forbes.com/sites/digital-assets/2026/02/06/hugely-important-bessent-issues-surprise-warning-that-could-be-about-to-trigger-a-gold-and-bitcoin-price-shock/ “China is moving toward a digital currency that is likely backed by gold,” Otavio Costa...

Kids these days, geez :)