At an abandoned train station in Buenos Aires’ working-class suburbof San Miguel, hundreds of Argentines gather with bags of clothes, rice, flour and sugar to trade.
Most are women, some accompanied by children. Cardboard signs with their names scrawled in black marker hang from strings around their necks. They walk around the old concrete platform yelling out the names of people they had agreed to trade with in a forum on Facebook. They are the face of a resurgent but little-reported phenomenon in the suburbs surrounding the Argentine capital – barter clubs.
The clubs have tens of thousands of members and are attracting hundreds more every week. They have become an unofficial economic indicator, showing the toll that soaring inflation and high unemployment are exacting on South America’s second- -biggest economy.
The barter clubs have surfaced before, during Argentina’s 2001– 2002 economic crisisand in the 2009 global financial meltdown. In between those crises they never completely went away, but today the clubs operate differently. Many members are part of Facebook groups where they arrange trades before exchanging goods in person at places like the station.
Membership in the clubs has been soaring in recent months as poor Argentines, many of whom have lost their jobs or work off-the-books, struggle to find the cash to make ends meet. They are one sign that progress made by President Mauricio Macri last year in reducing poverty is beginning to reverse.
The country’s inflation rate is running at above 25 percent, and the currency has lost more than 30 percent of its value this year in a financial crisis that economists say will likely trigger a recession.
With unemployment running at 9.1 percent and many salaries chewed up by years of high inflation, members of the barter clubs bring second-hand goods, rice or homemade produce like desserts to trade. A chart posted on the San Miguel group’s Facebook page outlines a points system for certain goods. It’s aimed at en suring participants feel their trades are fair.
A 1 kg pack of flour serves as a reference, with a hypothetical value of 30 pesos, or one point. Two packs of flour are worth one bottle of sunflower oil. Four packs of flour is the suggested price for one cake, while three packs can be used to get adult jeans.
When Reuters visited the San Miguel market and one in Merlo, another Buenos Aires suburb, most people seemed to be leaving with food. Cecilia Gómez, whose husband lost his job, was among those trading at the market. „This helps me bring my kids milk, sugar: the things that are most necessary,“ she said.´
NICOLÁS MISCULIN
Text pochází z agentury Reuters
