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Happy Monday, everyone!
I mean, if you survived last week, that is.
Here’s a spoiler alert for you: nothing new happened. No new scandals, no ground shaking government announcements, no one went to prison.
Basically last week was a sequel of the week before, and you know the rules when it comes to sequels: they usually disappoint.
I mean, by now our weekly news cycle has become so predictable you can even create a bingo card every Monday. “Lázaro Báez! The Panama papers! Unemployment! Inflation! Uber sucks!”
I can’t believe I’m about to say this, but maybe we need Tinelli to come out of hybernation and spice up our monotonous lives. At least that way we can take the moral high ground and feel better about ourselves.
This is what happened in the last week:
SOMETHING ABOUT THE LAZARO BAEZ CASE. AGAIN.
Whistleblower Leo Fariña talked again (shocker) to TN and The Wall Street Journal and said that the Kirchners stole more than a US $100 billion. Read that again. One. Hundred. Billion. Dollars. If you think it sounds insane it’s because it does. He even said they stole the equivalent of Argentina’s annual GDP. Is it even possible to steal so much money? Well, I never have so I couldn’t say. But while everyone was running to the Internet to complain, Margarita Stolbizer came out to tell us to calm the hell down.
She’s usually the voice of reason. I would listen to her if I were you.
Lázaro, however, is having none of that. After testifying in court last week, he denied everything and said that it was all a product of Fariña’s imagination.
Oh and his son also testified! That’s refreshing.
SOMETHING ABOUT THE PANAMA PAPERS. AGAIN.
And Macri kind of shrugs.
SOMETHING ABOUT CRISTINA KIRCHNER BEING ACCUSED OF CORRUPTION. AGAIN.
Starting to see a pattern here? It’s like reliving the same week over and over again.Groundhog Day meets The Twilight Zone or something. Ugh.
Anyway, former President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner was indicted last week (shocker) along with her son Máximo (also shocker) on embezzlement charges, bringing up the number of cases in which she’s being investigated to three.
SOMETHING ABOUT PRICES AND POVERTY GOING UP. AGAIN.
Are you smoker? Sorry. Do you own a car? Sorry again. Do you live in Argentina? Seriously, I’m so sorry.
But wait! Look on the bright side! Being poor now is so common that the SUBE card’s negative balance will increase (decrease?) from -AR $10 to -AR $20. So, you know…
Yay. I think.
SOMETHING ABOUT TAXI DRIVERS PROTESTING AGAINST UBER. AGAIN.
Oh, look! Another traffic clusterfuck courtesy of our friendly neighborhood’s taxi driver, who has decided to continue protesting Uber’s presence even though it’s pretty much defunct. Is it still working? I don’t think it’s still working. It doesn’t work with my credit card and most people I ask say there’s never a car available so what in the name of Jesus H. Christ are you people protesting?! Oh, there you go again! Now setting up a roadblock around the Obelisco. Nice.
No, this is totally normal, sure.
SOMETHING ABOUT UNEMPLOYMENT. AGAIN.
Right. So I’m sorry to have to inform you that, yes, unemployment is still a concern and the Macri administration and the opposition are very divided over this “job destroyer”/”job defender” (depending on where you stand) bill. It’s just like that movie featuring Captain America and Iron Man, Civil War. Except that the plot to this one is a trillion times more boring.
So last week President Macri offered a press conference to say that he was worried about jobs and stuff, but the opposition has vowed to keep fighting for this because Hitler or something like that, even though Cristina Kirchner herself seemed to be against it several years ago.
“LOL, politics”, etc.
Cambiemos eventually agreed to negotiate and the Frente Renovador’s Sergio Massa (who wants to be president in 2019) also said the bill needs to be revised to protect small and medium sized businesses.
SOMETHING ABOUT CORRUPTION. AGAIN.
I’m not going to write about this. All I will do is ask you to click here and read Rory Simon’s piece about something that happened in Mendoza. Probably one of the funniest things I’ve read in a long time.
IN OTHER NEWS…
China is invading us. Or something. (Ha! Just kidding. China has already made us their bitch many years ago.)
The good news: Argentina’s university degrees might be automatically valid in Europe soon.
The bad news: Your university may soon close.


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