Happy St. Patricks Day from Argentina everyone! To set the mood for this happy day, check out this song by an awesome up and coming band, The Blair Reinhardt Band. Click HERE
St. Patricks Day truly is a holiday celebrated all over the world. Here in Buenos Aires the tradition is almost as big as in the US with people wearing shades of green, various parts of the city hosting large block parties with bands and beer, and the partying continuing on throughout the night and into the next morning. I tend to be one that stays away from large holiday events where people get out of control and bad things are bound to happen, but I did make time to walk around the city a bit and see the masses flocking to the streets. It was quite the site I must say!
Thursday we had a long day of meetings starting by visiting CAEMe, a large pharmaceutical association in Argentina. They had really nice offices with large meeting rooms and we were treated to a 3 hour discussion on the pharmaceutical and drug industry in Argentina as well as another micro and macro economic/political discussion of the country. I was shocked to see that they had waitresses for us who shuffled around every few minutes refilling our water glasses and coffee cups. THANK GOODNESS for the coffee as almost everyone was a bit worn out from Wednesday nights late night at the Tango show. We also feasted on a delicious selection of medialunas, the most delicate and tasty little half moon shaped croissants you've ever tasted. After the meeting most of us chose to forgo lunch and squeeze in an hour long nap before we headed to the Buenos Aires Stock Exchange. Here we discussed the differences between the Argentine stock market and that of the US. Amazingly their market holds less than 120 companies, of which only 40 are actually traded. In fact stocks make up less than 10% of the entire securities market, with bonds representing over 1/3 of the securities market. It was quite interesting to be standing on the trading floor with the head of BASE watching the "traders" hard at work, playing on the internet, one was even checking facebook.... and they wonder why their economy is in the toilet and inflation is at about 27%??? After the discussion at BASE we headed to Merval, a portion of the governing body of the National Securities Commission (similar to the SEC in the US) where we met with two of their head economists to discuss the securities market and Argentine economy. One of the most interesting statistics we discussed was the spread of the country's GDP over the past decade and the controversy of government published statistics. According to the government GDP has varied 3.4% over the past decade with a standard deviation of +/- 5!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! THAT IS INCREDIBLE and a true example of the volatility in the markets here. (yet everyone keeps urging us to invest in Argentina, um... no thanks?).
We again heard about some controversy regarding the Argentine Prime Minister and the US Embassy so I am quite excited to head to the Embassy tomorrow to discuss diplomatic relations between the country!
I am having a wonderful time here thus far and have decided to stay low tonight to rest up. I am feeling quite well and think I am just about over my recent bout of mono, but would still like to ensure I am getting all the rest that my body needs to recover. Thankfully I have been able to escape the stresses of working and going to school full time and trying to do all the other things I normally do. While this has not been a vacation in the traditional sense and we are rather busy bustling about with meetings and what not, it is still fun and exciting to be in one of the worlds largest and most historic cities! I will be sad to leave Argentina but am quite excited to travel to Santiago.
I am just wondering though... if the market for wine is greater in Chile than here in Argentina, how will we survive? I do not see how we can drink much more than we already have but I guess we will have to give it a try! Tough life!!
Abrazos y Besitos!
T
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