Sin la familia (el hombrecito y mi esposa están en NYC), I watched the game at Eric and Alex’s today while Oscar the Boxer spent some time in his relaxation hut and their hombrecito napped. Excusing the first goal, it was a really fun match and then suddenly, the play turned one-sided and the Germans started drastically walking up the score. Argentina quickly scrambled and, at times, almost seemed confused while they attempted to contain the damage.

For awhile, Argentina was considered a top contender to take the 2010 World Cup and the excitement around Buenos Aires was incredible. Even if you weren’t watching a match, the roar of the fans during games could be heard anywhere. La onda on the streets after the matches was an amazing experience.

After the match, I scoped the streets to see if madness would prevail and to my surprise everything seemed unnervingly quiet. I headed toward my office and along the way, I noticed a collection of German flags flying in front of Sullivan’s. I saw a much larger crowd of Argentine jerseys across the street and was afraid that complete anarchy was about to unfold. I spotted a police officer on the opposite corner nervously talking on his mobile phone while the German fans aggressively waved flags and harassed cars as they attempted to make their way through the intersection. I overheard a British couple discussing something so I slowly moved towards them to see if I could eavesdrop. The gist of their conversation was that the celebration was incredibly rude given the current location. Personally, I was wondering why skulls weren’t being cracked by the large group of Argentine fans across the street, and then I realized that the people waving the German flags were speaking Spanish and were actually Germano Argentinos.

A common misconception is that all the German Argentines are descendants of Nazis fleeing Germany after WWII. While there were roughly 12,000 poorly received German immigrants arriving in Argentina between 1946 and 1952,  the majority of the two million Argentines of German decent are largely a result of the massive Volga German (mismo con mi familia en los Estados Unidos) immigration wave that occurred much earlier in the century.

In retrospect, the celebration of diversity by the Germano Argentines and the toleration shown by the non-German Argentines was nice to see and clearly shows that Philipp Lahm, the captain of the German squad is truly ignorant of the culture of Argentina and was offensively wrong when he said, “they [Argentina] did not know how to deal with a defeat.”

Today is the Day of Remembrance for Truth and Justice in Argentina. Locally, this is known as the Día de la Memoria.

The Día de la Memoria is in place to commemorate the victims of the military dictatorship, Nation Reorganization Process who ruled Argentina from 1976-1983. The NRP was a dark and evil organization and citizens routinely disappeared while they were in power. The failure in the Falklands War is credited as the catalyst that helped the Argentine people oust their nefarious overlords.

On GoodAirs I found a link to a Bloomberg article warning investors to “generally” avoid investing in Argentina. The warning came after CFK fired the central bank president because he opposed raiding the country’s currency reserves to service a budget shortfall.

Fred Wilson, the legendary NYC VC is in Buenos Aires for a holiday vacation. With him he brought a relatively new app produced by his portfolio company, foursquare. The timing is perfect because my new Milestone landed in BA on the 25th. Data plans are usually not available for non-residents but, just about everyone has WI-FI.

It looks like the conservatives may be a step closer to the presidency in Chile. This shift in power would end 16 years of centre-left rule in Chile. Over the last 16 years, Chillan GDP has averaged a YOY increase of ~ 5.5%.

Today is the holiday in Argentina known as Día de la Inmaculada Concepción or Día de la Virgen. Unfortunately, my office is closed so I will be working as much as possible out of cafes.

Recently, same-sex marriage was legalized in Argentina only to have that ruling overturned by judge Marta Gómez Alsina of Civil Court 85. Unfortunately, tomorrow Alex Freyre and José María Di Bello will not be married in Argentina. In certain sections of Argentina, civil unions are allowed, but do not provide inheritance and adoption rights.

Uruguay was the first country in Latin America to fully allow same-sex civil unions. Uruguay offers equal property, inheritance and adoption rights and appears to be a true leader on this front.

How to make a call from the United States to Argentina:

011 54 NUMBER IN ARGENTINA

E.g.

011 54 15 4937 6562

I use Vonage and often call local numbers. In the  example above, 011 is used to direct your call internationally, 54 is the country code for Argentina and 15 is the area code in Buenos Aires region. The Argentine phone numbers are comprised of two clusters of four digits.

The rhetoric is increasing between Venezuela and the US proxy located in Colombia. The problem is based on Colombia agreeing to allow the US to build a series of military basis within its borders. Colombia is a long way from Argentina, but a war on the continent would probably impact everyone in one way or another. Que lastima!

The Argentine Congress is currently in the process of raising taxes on imported electronics. The tax hike will apply to imported monitors, plasmas, LCD and cell phones. The goal of the tax hike is to try and internally promote electronic products assembled in the Tierra del Fuego region by making pre assembled products too expensive.

The long term consequence of this market manipulation is that the people of Argentina may become less globally competitive because the government has reduced their access to cutting edge technologies from corporations who do not wish to have an assembly factory in Argentina. This review mainly applies to the proposed tax increase on mobile devices that are globally fueling innovations in communication.

Instead of promoting manufacturing, the government should focus on the engineering behind the electronics (through grants to Universities). A much more profitable component in the chain.