Argentina - Living without banking - the black economy

[BoyRacer]

Living without banking → irishtimes.com/newspaper/fea … 52539.html

The majority of the population does without daily banking, mortgages, car loans, overdrafts or credit cards, yet the economy is booming. So is Argentina’s cash-based example one we should be following, asks Jack Horgan-Jones

With the black economy making up such a high proportion of all economic activity it is difficult to get people into a system where everybody complies with the same law. “If you’re outside the system you don’t want to get into it, and if you’re inside the system you want to get out,” says Johnson.

Orla Treacy (25) is originally from Limerick but has lived in Buenos Aires for the past two years. She works in the city and says that the banking practices of expats are as erratic as those of Argentinians.

“I am fortunate enough to work in a global company, so everything I do as regards payment and banking is official and on the books,” she says. “But many friends and acquaintances work illegally, or en negro, for local schools, companies, magazines or agencies and affiliates for companies in the United States or Europe. Many employers come to arrangements with their employees whereby they get paid in cash slightly above the going market rate and they keep quiet about how much they get paid and by whom.”

Treacy adds that expat rent and purchases are made in cash and that “there are usually substantial discounts from landlords and shop-owners if dollar cash is on offer, as this allows them to also keep things en negro”.

**Miguel Feldman says that “everything is black economy because the bank won’t give you loans”. He uses banks as little as possible and has a low opinion of them. He insists, however, that the situation is not one of honest bankers being denied the capital they need to work by a public which is loath to pay its way in society.
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