Slashdot Mirror
Google Unable To Keep Paying App Developers In Argentina
An anonymous reader writes "Google has sent letters to app developers registered in Argentina saying they won't be able to accept payments on developers' behalf after June 27th. 'The change applies to both paid apps and apps that use in-app purchases. The move appears to be related to new, restrictive regulations the Argentine government has imposed on currency exchanges.' According to the Telegraph, 'The new regulations required anyone wanting to change Argentine pesos into another currency to submit an online request for permission to AFIP, the Argentine equivalent of HM Revenue & Customs. To submit the request, however, you first needed to get a PIN from AFIP, either online or in person. Having finally obtained your number, submitted your online request and printed out your permission slip, you could then present it at the bank or official cambio and buy your dollars. Well, that was the theory. In practice, the result was chaos. ... damming the flood has come at a huge cost to the economy, especially since the currency restrictions were coupled with another set of regulations that effectively imposed a near-total ban on any imported goods.'"
Cristina Kirchner, destroying Argentina since 2007.
If the problem is caused by Google not being able to buy the correct kind of currency, couldn't they have offered to pay the developers in a different currency?
Do you care about the security of your wireless mouse?
Here in Brazil we had this kind of policy in the middle '80s. It brought incalculable damage to our economy and to our global competitiveness, together with hyperinflation and other such funny stuff. We finally abandoned this idiocy in the beginning of the '90s and haven't looked back since. Too bad South American countries in general are firm believers in the "But We Are Special!" School of Economics and don't like to do basic stuff such as looking around to see what worked and what didn't to then decide on policies. Argentina is going to suffer a lot in the following years until its government learn the lesson.
For other troubled countries to then disregard, after all, they're special too!
Conservatism: (n.) love of the existing evils. Liberalism: (n.) desire to substitute new evils for the existing ones.
Yay for protectionist, isolationist, centrally-managed, paternalistic government-crawling-up-your-pant-legs regulatory over-reach! So stimulating to the economy.
And imagine the opportunities for bureaucratic mischief as more and more layers are added in between someone who has something to sell, and someone who wants to pay for it.
When people complain about "big government," it's exactly this sort of (somewhat) unintended consequence and life-squashing administrative death by a thousand cuts that is really the concern. Too many byzantine rules and hoops to jump through, with too many low-level, unaccountable functionaries being gatekeepers in their own little fiefdoms. In the US, it looks like the IRS's increasing ugliness (to say nothing of what it will look like when they're policing everyone's individual compliance with ObamaCare requirements).
Domestically, this is what's being referred to as the rise of the Fourth Branch. And it's deadly.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
This is good news for us Americans here in the United States.
Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity, but don't rule out malice.
Other variations are available.
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
I live over there. Here's what's going on, I'll try to explain it because even fellow Argentinians don't really understand:
Argentina is a country that is very culturally different to the rest of Latin America, and even the world and likely the right place to look at when you want to see the results of a government being more involved instead of less. By the time of the second world war, Peron did a deep change to the country, created public health, public education (made public university free), public retirement funds, changed labor laws to highly benefit the employees (employeers must pay them many sort of benefits and can't fire them without paying compensation), etc.
Peron tried to made it clear that he wasn't going towards fascism/socialism/communism, but his model was more of creating a capitalism with more social equity through the intervention of the government. Most of the "upper class" did naturally not like this and tried to fight this by financing coup d'etats by the military (It's a little more complex than, but that goes beyond what i'm trying to explain and there's plenty of material to read about dictatorships in Latin America).
My point is that Argentinians are sort of "spoiled" and that has even been transmitted from generation to generation. There is this strange belief that everything that happens is the fault of the government, and that the government should take care of it.
For example, beyond public health, retirement, education, etc. If you are homeless, the government will build you a house. If you are poor and your children can't study, the government will give you money to send them to school. If you are unemployed, you just receive money. Transport is dirt cheap because it's subsidized too, some products are price-fixed to be made more accessible and now the government is even making a line of clothes that is more cheaper and accessible.
The government spends a fortune in social help and taxes are high as the result. But it goes beyond that. The economic model is also designed to ensure that unemployment is really low. They do this by forcing people to spend their money and not keep it, so there is constant inflation and purchasing foreign currency is forbidden. By spending the earned money constantly, the local economy is always very active, restaurants are packed full, and everyone is using credits to buy stuff.
The right wing media opposition to the government is strong and focuses on mainly on corruption and insecurity, to make people feel they are being constantly robbed and freak them out. However, people is employed and is earning decently nowadays so this has a limited effect, which gives place to the saying ("roban pero hacen", translated to "they might steal but they still do for the country") Even the media themselves know they can't mention anything related to a right wing point of view (less state intervention) or people will label them as traitors.
So the big question is if economical stability by this means are worthy. Buenos Aires is a production powerhouse and generates a lot of income, but there is a large part of the population that would not be able to be sustained in a more open economy. As a result, the country is very closed do the rest of the world economy. The rest of the world isn't very healthy economically either.
What's going on with Google is really nothing new. It's extremely hard for Argentinians to be entrepreneurs in this context, so we just open offshore companies in Panama, Delaware or other places and get paid there (otherwise we can't get get paid in us dollars or euros), then transfer our money to the country either illegally (black market price is higher), or legally (needed if you run a company and need to pay your employees). It's not impossible, just harder.
Im from Argetina, and i can tell u, there is almost no1 that likes this kind of goverment but its dificult for the middle-class people to fight them back. The buy votes and voters... send ppl to kill you or, if u have a store they will break it down and make u pay for thinking an speaking against the goverment.
Almost no1 wants to be like venezuela, we here hated Chavez and we widely hate the venezuela goverment, but sadly enough, we are going to be there... a 2nd venezuela and then, who the fuck knows.... maybe a cuba like country.
Here u r zed that a dollar = 5.60 pesos for the goverment, but u cant buy it... they dont sell.... and be careful not to say out loud u have some dollars at home or u will become an instant target.
Then there is the "blue" dollar, in xchange stores... one dollar = 8.95 pesos but is way too xpensive to buy... imagine buying gadget, a phone, tv, almost anything... take in consideration we have a 21% taxes over the stuff u buy, and a plus 10% for tech stuff, we are doomed.
A 250 dollars item here cost 250x3x7 or 8 or 9.... it depends of the item and the blue dollar... but u can see where im going with this.
Google works in dollars, developer's in pesos. Unless Google's local operations are in balance, at some point somebody has to do a conversion.
Kirchner want's it done at the official rate, which is favorable to the government, (They have lots of bills from abroad, and want to force the locals to sell dollars cheaply to them.)
Problem solved.
Seriously. It is better then having nothing and it is possible the dev could actually cash it in. Bigger devs could have an overseas bank account and get payment into that. Smaller devs could get products delivered to them internationally. It does not solve every problem, but it is better then no payment.
The Argentinian government is going to need something to distract the populous - time for the Falklanders to start digging bomb shelters.
And we travel every year to visit the family. If you say nobody likes the government, but at the same time I see most of my family support it (yes, we are a very small portion of the population), and Cristina Fernández won the last elections (and the economic measures we are arguing here were already in place) with 58% (against 16% of the second-best candidate)... I find it quite hard to swallow that you say "nobody likes the government". No, there is no suc violence or vote buying as you mention (and I as a Mexican can very well spot vote buying and coertion). What happens is that we seldom see beyond our class-level. The country has over 40 million people, many of them way poorer than your average Slashdot poster. And they have really got their lives better since the ultra-free-market nonsense of the 1990s was stopped, after the big 2001-2002 crisis.
As a middle-class Mexican, I'd love to have the public education, health and security systems Argentina has. In fact, those three are important reasons why we regularly consider moving there.
I don't see the connection. How can a law designed to strengthen the peso (by prohibiting ARS -> USD conversion) be a problem for developers selling apps priced in USD? (This would imply USD -> ARS conversion, which is what the Argentine goverment wants.)