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"When you ask any Argentinean person what concerns them the most, the first thing they’re going to be telling you is the crime problem. And the second one is the financial problem. Those are by far the top concerns the average Argentinean person has, and I think that eventually it will happen in the U.S.A., as well. I think that five years from now or so, you’re going to be talking to people, and the thing that’s going to be concerning them is that Joe down the street suffered a home invasion and got beaten up, maybe even got killed. All kinds of crime that didn't used to happen in the good parts of town. It’s going to be one of the greatest concerns people will have, eventually.
And, of course, the financial situation as well. If you look into what people are worried about right now they’re worried about losing their jobs not being able to put food on the table the next month. They see that if they lose their jobs it’s not as easy as it used to be to find another one as well. That’s terrible, because it’s very cold when you look at it in numbers, but it’s—I’m telling you—it’s so much different when it happens on a social level and you see that on the street . When you see the people picking up garbage on the streets to eat."
Hyperinflation survivor Fernando "FerFAL" Aguirre shares his observations of life during and after Argentina's currency collapse in 2001. He notes that the decline initally began slowly, with most of the populace slow to wake to the danger. But when the eventual collapse occured, it happened practiclly overnight - catching the country by surprise. In the wake of the collapse, dealing with poverty and violent crime became the dominant themes.
Worth our attention is his observation that he now sees the sames signs in the US and other major developed nations that he saw leading up to Argentina's collapse. In fact, he foresees a similar endgame as all but inevitable.
Click the play button below to listen to Part 1 of Chris' interview with FerFAL (runtime 31m:43s):
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Or start reading the transcript below:
Chris Martenson: Welcome to another ChrisMartenson.com podcast. I am Chris Martenson, your host today, as usual. Today we’re speaking with Fernando “FerFAL” Aguirre, author of Surviving the Economic Collapse (Self-published, 2009. ISBN 978-9870563457). FerFAL experienced the hyperinflationary destruction of Argentina’s economy in 2001 and has since dedicated his professional career, like I have, to educating the public about his experiences and observations of its lingering aftermath. Given the rising concerns that we all have today about the future of fiat currencies, our listeners are increasingly asking to hear from voices that have firsthand experience with extreme currency devaluation, what it means, how it actually feels, how it plays out. So we’re very fortunate that FerFAL is able to join us today from his home in Argentina. We’re going to be discussing the signs that preceded the collapse in his country and what has defined the society since, including smart moves to take if worried about a similar fate happened in one’s own country and how would you know where you are in the story as it unfolds. So FerFAL, we’re so glad to have you with us today.
FerFAL: Hi Chris. Thanks for having me here.
Chris Martenson: So take us back to that period leading up to the currency collapse that you witnessed living in Argentina in 2001. You know: What were the signs, what were people’s perceptions at the time about how dire the situation could get, and what was the government saying and doing?
FerFAL: Well, the government as always says that nothing is going on and that everything is fine. As you can come to expect by now, just a few hours later you see the entire country go down. And you will be seeing high amounts of an unemployment, and there’s going to be a good amount of social unrest. Unfortunately, many of these things are already happening in the United States. So you are seeing many of these signs right now.
Chris Martenson: What sort of signs?
FerFAL: Having the people living on the streets where it didn’t happen before. Inflation slowly going up. There’s small details. I was talking with a friend yesterday of mine from the U.S.A. He was telling me that something I had mentioned a few years ago about sizes of items and products shrinking and changing the design. It’s all very well-campaigned with good marketing and such. It’s like we’re offering this new improved product, but that new improved product happens to be just a bit smaller than it used to be, at a slightly higher price. So all those little things, the way in which they hide the inflation, they slowly creep it into your life.
Chris Martenson: So did the Argentinean government—how were they hiding inflation?—through the official statistics claiming it was lower than what people were experiencing? Or how did that play out?
FerFAL: Yes, at first, hiding inflation as products get smaller, but soon enough that’s just not enough either. So it starts going up as well, noticeably so, and people see that their shopping cart just isn’t filling as much as it used to. You’re just buying half of what you used to with the same amount of money, but in the official statistics they’re saying that everything is fine because they changed the way they measure inflation so as to fit what they want to show you. So, if for example, take meat, it has gone up 20 percent, they will just take into account specific type of meat that is only found in one particular location, so it’s not very real, that statistic, but that’s what they stick to.
Chris Martenson: Right, so a beef tongue in the outer reaches seems to be cheaper today, so we’ll go with that—something like that. So it sounds like a pretty common story here, which is the governments obviously don’t want to admit that inflation is high, because that’s either a fiscal or a monetary failing, or most likely both. So they don’t like to admit that, plus there’s a lot of reasons why you want to keep inflation low in terms of being able to say your economic growth is higher and keeping your pension payments lower. There are a lot of reasons for that. So you’re saying that in the United States if we look around, we can already see early signs that parallel what you saw in Argentina? We have rising prices, shrinking packaging for certain things, maybe more people on food stamps, historical records, maybe more people homeless…
FerFAL: More people on social welfare—all those things we saw as well, and it’s happening in U.S.A. as well, unfortunately. It’s an already-written story. We know what ends up happening. It may have different variations, and it may end up in an economic collapse, or not. That’s something that I personally prefer not to be the one spreading that kind of—you know what happens? Its fear. It’s not productive for people in general when preparing, so I’m not going to be saying that the economy in the U.S. is going to be collapsed. All I’m going to be saying is that it’s going to be much worse than it already is right now, and people need to adjust to that different lifestyle.
Chris Martenson: Absolutely, and I want to get to that really important point about how fear can be demotivating. Let’s get to that later. Let’s track this now. So how quickly did the collapse happen? You know, what is a boiling frog situation and people woke up one day and said “whoa, how did we get here?” Or did it feel somehow like the world changed overnight?
FerFAL: It’s a bit of both. These things don’t happen overnight. You see them coming for years. As you see it in U.S.A., as well, we saw it here as well, and that’s the reason why some of the richest, most powerful elite manage to leave the country with more than enough time. Some happen to do it more in a rush, but most of these guys that have the inside information manage to avoid having their bank accounts frozen, as we saw. So there are signs, and it is a bit of a boiling frog situation. The thing is, eventually when it cracks down, it does so all of a sudden. All of a sudden, you know, when the banks close, that’s when people go absolutely ballistic, because that’s when they realize that their money has been stolen from them - or when inflation turns to hyperinflation one day to the next. That’s when people see that even though you didn’t steal their money directly, as it happened here with the banks, you’re stealing it through inflation as well. So they just bought half of what they used to with the same amount of money. It’s, in a way, stealing their labor, their savings.
The rest of the transcript to Part 1 can be read here.
Click here to access Part 2 of the interview, which focuses on smart steps individuals can take in preparation before an economic collapse.
Fernando "FerFAL" Aguirre experienced the hyperinflationary destruction of Argentina's economy in 2001 and continues to blog about his experiences and observations of its lingering aftermath. His website (www.themodernsurvivalist.com) and his book Surviving the Economic Collapse (Self-published, 2009. ISBN 978-9870563457) offer windows into the probable outcomes to expect during a collapsing economy. Note: Our site's What Should I Do? Guide offers specific guidance relevant to a number of the risks FerFAL mentions in the interview.
This What Should I Do? blog series is intended to surface knowledge and perspective useful to preparing for a future defined by Peak Oil. The content is written by ChrisMartenson.com readers and is based in their own experiences in putting into practice many of the ideas exchanged on this site. If there are topics you'd like to see featured here, or if you have interest in contributing a post in a relevant area of your expertise, please indicate so in our What Should I Do? series feedback forum.
If you have not yet seen the other articles in this series, you can find them here:
- A Case Study in Creating Community (SagerXX)
- Peak Certainty, Food Resilience, and Aquaponics (Farmer Brown)
- Creating Healthy Snacks from Your Garden (EndGamePlayer)
- The Essential Gardening and Food Resilience Library (Old Hippie)
- Installing A Solar Energy System (rhare)
- The Keys to Transitioning Healthcare: Empowerment, Education, & Prevention (suziegruber)
- A Quiet Revolution in Bicycles: Recapturing a Role as Utilitarian People-Movers - Part 1 (Cycle9)
- A Quiet Revolution in Bicycles: Recapturing a Role as Utilitarian People-Movers - Part 2 (Cycle9)
- Practical Survival Skills 101 - Fire Starting (Aaron Moyer)
- Raising Your Own Chickens (Woodman)
- Dealing With a Reluctant Partner (Becca Martenson)
- Making the Urban-to-Rural Transition (joemanc)
- Prepping on a Shoestring (Amanda)
- Practical Survival Skills 101 - Water (Aaron Moyer)
- Small-Scale Beekeeping (apismellifera)
- Making Soap (maceves)
- Woodworking (bklement)
- Practical Survival Skills 101 - Obtaining Shelter (Aaron Moyer)
- Extending the Harvest in Your Home Garden (Woodman)
- Problem Solving: Improvise, Adapt, Overcome (Mooselick7)
- Cultivating Inner Resilience in the Face of Crisis (suziegruber)
- Protecting Yourself Against Crime and Violence (thc0655)
- Managing Pain Without Meds (JAG)
- How to Explain the Current Economic Situation to Friends & Family (rhare)
- Practical Survival Skills 101 - Understanding Emergencies (Aaron Moyer)
- Quick Primer on Contamination Control Measures (Dogs_In_A_Pile)
- Food Storage Made Easy (Adam)
- Fortifying Yourself And Your Home Against Crime (thc0655)
- How To Increase The Energy Efficiency of Your Existing Home (zeroenergy21)
- Buying a House in Today's Market (Patrick Killelea)
- Preparing for Economic Collapse (FerFAL)
- The Case for Small Scale Biofuels (Ready)
- Whole Food Eating (Teresa Piro)
- Wood Gasification: An Intriguing Emergency Fuel Source (Dutch John)
- Argentina: A Case Study in How An Economy Collapses (FerFAL)
This series is a companion to this site's free What Should I Do? Guide, which provides guidance from Chris and the ChrisMartenson.com staff on specific strategies, products, and services that individuals should consider in their preparations.
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Great interview! Two of my favorites, Martenson and Aguirre, together at last!
(Now if only we could get Lira, Foss, Durden, Smith, and Greer to also join in!)
I just wanted to bring up a few points:
1. It's already happened in Belarus, with their devaluation of the Belarusian ruble and hyperinflation.
http://www.chrismartenson.com/forum/all-...
2. This was an article from April, but it seems prophetic:
Riding Along With The Cops In Murdertown, U.S.A.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/17/magazi...
“We ain’t cops anymore,” Howe says. “We’re librarians. We take reports. We don’t fight crime.”
He guides me through the yellowing jail cells upstairs that had to be closed down recently because of lack of manpower. “If you break into someone’s house, we can’t hold you,” he says with a straight face. “If you’ve got a weapon or you’ve murdered somebody, then county will take you. I don’t see any light at the end of this tunnel. Only darkness.”
When [police car onboard computer boots up], I see that there are more than 12 runs stacked up, including a kidnapping call that is more than six hours old. A home-invader call is two hours old. A “man with a gun” call is 90-minutes old.
“Sometimes, we don’t get to a call for two days,” he says. Last fall, an elderly couple called after being held up at gunpoint in their driveway. The police arrived on the scene five hours later.
Traffic tickets?
“Don’t make me laugh,” he says.
3. Thc0655 (a well-respected member of our community, a fan of Fernando "FerFAL" Aguirre, a law enforce officer, and author of the Protecting Yourself Against Crime and Violence and Fortifying Yourself And Your Home Against Crime posts), two days ago mentioned an article in the Huffington Post by Janet Tavakoli, called:
Third World America 2011: Forget "Fast Tracking to Anarchy" We've Arrived
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/janet-tava...
Tavakoli describes the breakdown of law and order, the looting, rioting, wilding, mob violence that is starting to occur, due to our ongoing economic collapse.
On Memorial Day, North Avenue beach, in one of Chicago's more affluent areas, was closed after gang violence. This is unprecedented... Violence was out of control as beach-goers were harassed by mobs and cyclists were pulled off their bikes and beaten.
...One police officer told the media that 500 youths exited public transportation for the lakefront and while they were there, citizens were harassed.
CBS reported wilding incidents at this beach earlier in May, and police patrols had already been stepped-up. Two bike riders on the North Avenue Beach path had been mobbed by about 100 teens. They were knocked off their bikes and then thrown into Lake Michigan. Yet Near North District commander Kenneth Angarone said police responding at the scene did not find a "bona fide incident."
Mobs have swarmed local businesses, shoplifted and intimidated shoppers at high-end stores, attacked bus riders, attacked shoppers near Michigan Avenue, attacked tourists and more. Shortly after Mayor Rahm Emanuel said he would round up perpetrators of last week's mob attack, NBC reported that a mob of 15 to 20 youths beat and robbed two people in Chicago's downtown shopping area.
Memorial Day Mobs: Boston, Nashville, Long Island, Miami, Rochester, and Charlotte
Wildings occurred in other cities on Memorial Day weekend in what may have been coordinated flash wildings. Gangs swarmed beaches in Boston, Nashville, Long Island, Miami, Rochester, and Charlotte in what some believe was a social media coordinated effort...
Poet
This was an excellent feature we can all learn from. I'd like to emphasize a few points Aguirre made that I strongly agree with but I believe are much too often glossed over or outright denied.
1. Crime will become THE most important daily concern of most people. I know it's not like that now except in traditional high crime areas, but it's coming. And that doesn't mean that everywhere will be like ghettos are now. It won't take much but an occasional home invasion, gunpoint robbery, a victim hurt or killed after a robbery, a stolen car or home burglary in previously low crime areas to raise the issue of crime to the forefront of people's minds who never really gave it much thought before. Aguirre politely alludes to a common American idea that "we're different, those kinds of things can't happen here," and the plain psychological denial of unpleasant possibilities that is keeping many Americans from beginning to prepare for our near future realities. Maybe there was a time in a America when the majority of people were so morally upright and law abiding that an economic collapse would not lead to greatly increased crime. But look at our people now. Here and now, we are not that morally and ethically solid. It won't take much to light the fire of crime and violence.
2. The explosion in crime will come when previously middle class and law-abiding people are reduced to poverty and near-helplessness by economic difficulties. Many, many people unaccustomed to such feelings will start feeling trapped, desperate, raging angry, and oppressed. Some percentage of them will feel "forced" into victimizing others in order to survive and/or avenge for how they've been taken advantage of. Those already below middle class who have long felt the same things will be further stressed, and even more than are currently involved in crime will succumb to stealing and violence. Remember that our growing economic difficulties will be matched by growing public awareness of the fraud, greed and immorality of many of the actors who have brought these difficulties on us all. That awareness will cause rage and violence to rise, particularly among those who were previously inexperienced in much of either. We humans don't always focus the expression of our anger appropriately on the people who have harmed us. Instead of expressing his anger at his Congressman or the corporation that laid him off, a man may express that anger at the stranger who refuses his demand to hand over his wallet.
3. The most important transformation people will have to go through, as Aguirre points out, is in mental attitude and preparation. Because you're very aware that a burglary may occur while you're away at work that awareness will cause you to check to confirm all your doors and windows are locked and your alarm is activated when you leave. After shopping, you will look from the store across the parking lot to your car and assess the scene for potential crime dangers. You'll have a plan for how to approach your car, look around you as you're walking to it, get in quickly, lock the doors immediately and drive away. Because of your awareness of the possibility of home invasion robbery, you will talk to people at your front door through your intercom without opening the door or through your locked security door to keep the person/people from pushing in and taking you captive for a robbery. A mental attitude that accepts the possibility of crime and a determination not to be an easy, unaware victim is the key to survival. You can discipline yourself to develop that now, or you can wait until the crime wave is upon you and forces you into a new mindset. Hopefully, you won't be one of the first victims in your "safe" area whose loss and trauma helps to wake others up.
4. Think long and hard and unemotionally about trying to avoid the economic and crime problems by moving to a place that will allegedly not be affected (or not as much). There will be a few such places but not as many as we would all like, and certainly not as easy to predict today as we'd like. There are however plenty of salespeople who would be glad to tell you what you want to hear in order to get your money. I wish I had a link to the article I read last year, but in it a man writes about how in the late 1930's he and his wife saw that a great world war was coming and they resolved to wait it out in some forgotten corner of the world. They did their research, sold all their belongings and moved from the US to the obscure (at that time) Solomon Islands in the Pacific Ocean. Of course, that was the sight of probably the most intense warfare in the Pacific theatre of World War II ! If you have the urge to move to a better place to ride out the storm, might I suggest as Aguirre does that you think through the security and crime issues and prepare accordingly. Don't just move and think you've addressed the safety issue -- move AND prepare.
The huge storm cloud, all black and furious, approaches relentlessly, too hideous to be faced by more than 1 in 10,000. Philadelphia, PA
"When you ask any Argentinean person what concerns them the most, the first thing they’re going to be telling you is the crime problem. And the second one is the financial problem."
That quote alone speaks volumes. My thanks to both of you for the excellent interview.
Travlin
You can always trust your government -- to do anything necessary to preserve itself. Travlin
tch0655,
Thanks for taking the time and effort in talking about crime. It is now my #1 concern.
On another issue, how did gold and silver hold up during this period in Argentina?
Nate
Hi everyone, it was good to finally talk to Chris. The only problem is that every question opens a new topic that we could spend hours talking about!
I'll check this thread for a few days, if there's comments or questions feel free to post them here and I'll reply as best as I can. Thanks!
Fer
I'll check this thread for a few days, if there's comments or questions feel free to post them here and I'll reply as best as I can. Thanks!
I'll start you off easy. This is off topic, but my curiosity is killing me. For years I’ve wondered how you got your nickname FerFAL, and why the last three letters are capitalized. Also, did Chris pronounce it correctly? I know he is meticulous, but I thought it would sound like “fur fall” with the accent on fall.
Thanks for doing the interview.
Travlin
You can always trust your government -- to do anything necessary to preserve itself. Travlin
That's definitely an easy one...
Oh, c'mon, Travlin. If you've really been following him for years, you'd have known FAL stands for Fusil Automatique Léger, his favorite Belgian rifle! ;)
Here's the link to confirm. (I already knew the answer, having read it on one of his blog pages a while back):
http://ferfal.blogspot.com/2010/06/i-am-...
I'll leave the pronounciation question unanswered. :-)
Poet
I'll start you off easy. This is off topic, but my curiosity is killing me. For years I’ve wondered how you got your nickname FerFAL, and why the last three letters are capitalized. Also, did Chris pronounce it correctly? I know he is meticulous, but I thought it would sound like “fur fall” with the accent on fall.
Thanks for doing the interview.
Travlin
I think Fer is "Fernando", and being a shooter, I can only speculate that FAL means Fusil Automatiq Legir.
The legendary service rifle that served the Argentine Military.
FerFAL - I've got a few more questions for you, and I can't express my gratitude at your presence here. I'm sure that I'm one of a great many.
1. Housing - We're already seeing a drastic increase in "extended" family becoming "close" family. That is to say, sons and daughters moving back in with parents/grandparents. How has this dynamic created stress or added benefits to the average Argentine's life? I have a friend in Argentina who lives with her family, and almost all her brothers and sisters live in the same flat, which is not very big.
Is housing overpriced in general, or is it simply safer and more secure to stay in family units?
2. I hear a lot of talk about community "co-op" food growing. This to me seems like a great, but terribly difficult to manage situation. Are there "community" gardens? Are they unique to places that are gated?
In Cuba, we saw a huge surge in agriculture after the Soviets collapsed and the country was left without oil.
In North Korea, we see the opposite; a massive, starving population.
I worry greatly, because most American workers do not have the agricultural skills to sustain even themselves, let alone a large population. What are your thoughts on how to procure food and water?
I know it's a boring subject, but how does this rank on your priority list?
3. What skills did you possess that have made your family safer and closer that you'd suggest people develop while there is still time?
Again, many thanks!
Cheers,
Aaron
"Subject to no government but that of my own conscience."
That's definitely an easy one...
Oh, c'mon, Travlin. If you've really been following him for years, you'd have known FAL stands for Fusil Automatique Léger, his favorite Belgian rifle! ;)
Here's the link to confirm. (I already knew the answer, having read it on one of his blog pages a while back):
http://ferfal.blogspot.com/2010/06/i-am-...
Thanks Poet.
You can always trust your government -- to do anything necessary to preserve itself. Travlin
I'll check this thread for a few days, if there's comments or questions feel free to post them here and I'll reply as best as I can. Thanks!
I'll start you off easy. This is off topic, but my curiosity is killing me. For years I’ve wondered how you got your nickname FerFAL, and why the last three letters are capitalized. Also, did Chris pronounce it correctly? I know he is meticulous, but I thought it would sound like “fur fall” with the accent on fall.
Thanks for doing the interview.
Travlin
Hi! Fer is my name, (Short for Fernando is usually Nando or Fer) FAL is for my favorite battle rifle, the Fusil Automatique Léger .
Yes, its "Fer" as it sounds, not "fur".
FerFAL