Twenty years ago - a TN video

Are we any better off today? In many respects, no.

Quote from Rice

I would say not. Possibly better than during a very narrow time period, but not better than during that decade.

Without being over dramatic, the scenes in that video look all too familiar and wouldn't be out of place today. Unfortunately, 39 people were shot dead by police during the violence, the Madres de Plaza de Mayo were run over by police horses and only three policemen were ever charged over this.

Following the drama of December 2001, the country had five different presidents in eleven days. Adolfo Rodriguez Saa for example, only held the post for seven days, yet all of them are receiving ex-president pensions because there is no time limit on how long you should have served before receiving that pension. The ex-vice-presidents also get it.

The only vice-president to do the honourable thing is Julio Cobos (vice to CFK) who has donated most of it to charities.

Talking of charities, in 1982 Maradona helped raise AR$100m for the young soldiers fighting in the Falklands war. Not a cent was ever seen by the young conscripts, all of which was stolen by the military dictatorship and the sweets, biscuits and other gifts were later found being sold in kiosks as far away as Mendoza.

It's hardly surprising that every Argentine alive will stop at nothing to either cheat or swerve around the greedy hands of successive governments in this country. It simply cannot be fixed because there is no will to fix it.

Quote from UK Man

Indeed....everyone's at it. Was in the baccy shop yesterday and asked the price of a pouch of pipe tobacco as the price tag had been felt tipped over. The girl typed in the code and said 300 pesos. Within seconds the shop owner said ''oh the system hasn't updated it to the new price of 450 pesos.'' I told them they could stuff it!!

That's a regular occurrence because they just seem to make it up as they go along.