Prior to arriving in La Paz, Bolivia was the country I was least excited to visit. After watching a brief documentary on VICE, all I knew going in was that it was very easy to buy a gun and that Bolivia was the poorest country in South America. When you combine the two, one can only assume the worst. To my surprise and many others in the program, I was wrong. Outside of my trip to Patagonia, Bolivia has been hands down my favorite country to visit in South America.
The contrast between Buenos Aires (B.A.) and Montevideo is night and day. While both cities have many similarities (late nightlife hours, brown coastal water, limited shopping selection, outrageous platform shoes, and amazing street art), the lifestyle in B.A. is not much different than living in San Francisco, Los Angeles or New York. The cost of living is quite high, you can always find something to do and there’s actually a decent amount of expats and Asians here.
Interest Rates, set by central banks (or in our case the Federal Reserve), are essentially the rates at which banks charge one another for very short-term (overnight) loans. It is also the rate at which the central banks charge commercial banks for holding their reserves (i.e., JP Morgan, Bank of America, Citi, etc.). When the economy isn’t doing too hot, central banks tend to lower Interest Rates to encourage consumer spending and business investment (borrowing), which they hope will in turn stimulate economic growth.
As the U.S. Unemployment Rate drops below 5% for the first time since the 2008 recession, Obama continues to pat himself on the back on what a great job he has done since the subprime mortgage crisis. When looking at the chart below, it’s tough to argue with him. On the surface, the Unemployment Rate has been cut by more than half since 2010. Surely, our economy has to be “stronger” than ever right?
For those of you who are geographically challenged like myself, Uruguay is sandwiched between the southern tip of Brazil and northeastern part of Argentina. The country has a population of ~3.3 million people (less than Los Angeles) and ranks #1 in democracy, peace, lack of corruption and quality of life among South American countries. Montevideo (where I’m staying), is the capital and largest city of Uruguay, located along the southern coast of the country.
As some of you may know, I will be traveling as a participant on Remote Year. Their website does a great job explaining the program, so I won’t bore you with the details. I leave SF for Montevideo, Uruguay this Saturday (Jan 30) and will be following the program’s tentative itinerary below:
Real Talk by Curtis Tan 