Today's e-issue of EBLEX the organization of the English beef and sheep industry, reports that exports of Argentine beef have fallen even further. At this point, our once-was powerhouse of beef exporting has become irrelevant to our former best customers, Europe.
In the darkest days of Argentine beef exports, 2001, when the world closed their markets to us because of an outbreak of hoof-and-mouth disease, we exported 43,000 tons of fresh and frozen beef (cooked/canned beef is a much cheaper, much lower margin product.)
Today, we export 29,000 tons. In the 1980's we averaged about 250,000 tons per year.
Argentina's traditional customers in Europe have largely given-up on ever seeing it again ...they have moved-on to other providers. If Argentina ever again begins to exports in significant quantities, it will be hard to win those customers back.
Charmingly, Europe thinks that we still produce the kind of grass-fed beef that can compete with premium UK beef. News of our feedlots, apparently has not reached the other side of the pond either.
We broke the psychological barrier today: Argentina's highest denominated note is now worth less than 10 dollars. "What happens now?" That was the question on everyone's mind this morning.
By afternoon, the government announced what would happen.
If that sounds to you suspiciously like money-laundering, you're in good company ...almost simultaneously, the national government announced:
That announcement was not really for domestic consumption; Argentina has only recently been given a clean bill of health from western central bankers as being cured of her free-wheeling ways as regards the sanitary movement of currency.
The prediction business is a tough business ...especially when yer talkin' about the future. However, yer humble blogger has never been afraid to stick his neck out ...so with everybody ringing my phone off the hook, you can have my 2¢ (about 20.2 centavos.)
#1. Without these announcements, the Argentine peso would be well on its way to 12 pesos to each dollar ...beyond that, who can say? Once unthinkable, today's double-digit dollar changed brain chemistry all over the country. People who have been waiting for "things to settle down," made plans to buy this morning ...pretty much without regard as to how much a dollar would cost them. "Buy 'em at 10 before they go to 12," flashed across the synapses of every citizen of the world's most talented amateur economists.
#2. With these announcements, however, brainwaves have become scrambled at least momentarily. The bill draft to establish a recovery of undeclared assets seems to be an amnesty of sorts. It would allow folks to bring out their hard foreign currency from both mattresses here and off-shore accounts, and pay no penalties nor taxes.
#3. This lightening fast action on the part of the administration could actually keep the peso from going to 11 to the dollar before close of business Friday.
#4. The plan seems exceeding smooth: your hidden foreign currency (nobody hides pesos) comes out, gets declared, and you receive a bond of sorts that pays interest, is endorsable, and payable as soon as the current president leaves office. You pay no penalty, interest, nor taxes on the amount. Amnesty ends about 90 days from now.
#5. Life is beautiful and monetary stability is restored.
I have a few problems swallowing all of this not the least of which is how this comes hard on the heels of money-laundering accusations by operatives close and/or inside the administration regarding 500 euro notes.
The plan is too smooth, sunshiney, and easy. Maybe a decade of living here has hardened me ...but nothing ever seems to turn-out quite like this. When you figure that, in order to qualify for these lollipops and sunshine, one would have to bare one's most private of assets to the national government ...a sudden increase in everyone's confidence in national fiscal policy would be necessary to make it work.
The payment date for the bond is scheduled to take place after the new administration is inaugurated. Somehow, methinks this puts to bed any rumors or hopes that la presidenta will be back for another term.
Today's announced plan is too slick and too responsive. It seems to have been waiting in a box marked, "do not open until $10.00." It seems designed as a weapon of mass-distraction against the last hundred-dollar bill in Argentina being purchased before the end of the month.
Although I´ll be following the currency rates closely for a while, I´ll be especially interested in the international reaction as regards money-laundering. This policy apparently would allow you to smuggle a large sum of money into the country, declare it at any local bank, and be forgiven of any taxes and penalties with no questions asked as to its provenance. That´s not gonna sit well with US and European central bankers.
A final thought on hitting ten and this/these new announcements: this looks tremendously desperate.
A word of advice: hold on to your ass; this is some good acid.
Then it looked hopeless ...now it's really on!
As of Saturday, Yer Faithful Blogger/Rancher will have his own abattoir (slaughterhouse for you less squeamish.) I´ll be sharing it with a few other local ranchers ...but the main thang is that my cattle will only have to ride 25km/15.5 miles to meet their yummy nourishing fate instead of hundreds of kilometers of rough, traumatizing journey. That short ride was an absolute requirement on my part ...we turned-down a lot of offers from slaughterhouses much farther away.
So ...would you actually buy grass-fed beef that came from the most humanely-raised, least-stressed, boutique-slaughtered bovines available?
I´m thinking that you would not. Be honest. Am I wrong?
My bidness-plan says that the price would not necessarily be higher than your local Buenos Aires Capital supermercado or carnecería ...but I have never been convinced that there is a local market for "The Beef that Made Argentina Famous."
My biggest worry is that Argentines don´t really care about grass-fed beef ...as long as it's cheap and plentiful, this once-great beef nation seems quite satisfied with "causchwitz" beef.
The expat market is not big enough to consider on most levels ...although, porteños do like to know what the foreigners are raving about. "Caveman Diet" aficionados, however, have offered encouragement.
So ...help me out here. Would you go out of your way to buy real, natural, grass-fed beef more than once? Why would you? Why wouldn't you? How receptive would you be to hamburger and other non-steak cuts that require a bit of kitchen know-how to prepare?
Be brutal...
(from Mac McClelland, Modern Farmer)
"The phone in Prather’s modest beige office rings a lot. But when people call these days, it’s most often not to ask what the cows are fed, or if they’re on antibiotics or hormones, or how lushly and freely they range.
"It’s to confirm how peacefully they died."
Whatever your name for this pure-pork concoction ...it's really weird stuff here in Argentina. For example, here in La República, expats seek strong spicy flavors ...and the natives adore the meaty and mild.
Even so, Midwestern and Southern US expats love this mildly seasoned stuff ...and the locals have no true equivalent in their non-spicy repertoire!
That having been said, there is no one in this great sausage-eating country who doesn't love this stuff ...even my gauchos dig it and ask for more. That's high praise coming from what might be the most unadventurous eaters on the planet.
Gauchos, of course, don´t eat it for breakfast ...and are a little put-off by eating it in patties. But lots of yanquis, including myself!, truly love it better in links. I was REALLY inspired by Bratwurst Argentina at the most recent BA Underground Market! Their links were perfectly breakfast-sized and beautiful.
And I'm gonna try some linky-citos this time! I can't legally sell this stuff, of course ...but I can give it away!
Lemme know if you want some.
I suggest that you fry it up with eggs, grits, buttered toast, and good strong coffee!
First dibs goes to Cherie Magnus and my cast-iron skillet buddies! Otherwise, there should be enough for quite a few other expats ...drop me a line!