[vaneck]

An Argentinian here.

I honestly believe the current government is, in many ways, the best this country has had for the past 30 years (at least), even taking into account its many and very real shortcomings (the mangling of official statistics and the outrageous restrictions on foreign currency ranking very high among them).

I am obviously partial in the matter, but I also believe Argentina still has much going for it. The upper education system in particular remains very good in most places and is completely free. I attend the University of Buenos Aires and can attest to this, even though I'm by no means a top student. The resources aren't abundant, but the quality of the education itself is excellent.

Lastly, the government is forcefully buying the oil company that used to be state-owned until the early 90s neoliberal selling spree happened. It's not like it's arbitrarily taking companies by force. I think there's some kind of consensus in economics about oil being a strategic resource, so I'm not sure it's fair to extrapolate from this one data point.

[laut]

> It's not like it's arbitrarily taking companies by force. 

They took over the majority of the shares by force. Buying something is when you voluntarily agree on a transaction. When the government cuts off the communication to the head quarters as the nationalization is announced and then go with armed guards to escort the Spanish bosses out of the building. That is what's called "an offer you can't refuse".

[drats]

Anecdotes are not data. The whole of South America is fairly mediocre vs. the world in education but Argentina doesn't seem to be ahead of Chile in a relative ranking. Chile has two unis ahead of your university, which is top in the country (although Argentina does make up some ground in the tail).[1]

The Spanish have a different story on the oil company. It's hardly an advertisement to set up a business there anyway, which is what I am talking about.

Finally, I don't think being the best government in Argentine history is a very high bar to reach. You were the 7th richest country in the world in the 1920s, with plenty of resources, and now a place starting poorer than you like Japan with hardly any resources (plus getting burned to the ground and nuked twice) is three or four times richer. There are tons of examples like that beyond Japan, the governments of Argentina have been a string of disasters in terms of providing for the people and not filling mass graves with them. Taking the current government though, I'd hardly say inflation three to six times higher than Chile is a great government. But when inflation in the past has been measured in hundreds of percent I concede that this could be a reasonable government when the only comparison is past Argentine governments.

[1]http://www.topuniversities.com/university-rankings/latin-ame...

[demian]

Anecdotes are not data.

In that ranking, they basically measure reputation, citations of papers in other papers and # of PhDs students. It depends how you measure quality.

Finally, I don't think being the best government in Argentine history is a very high bar to reach...

Yes, that's correct.

In a nutshell, when Argentina was rich there were very rich and very few landowners, who also controlled the goverment, and a lot of poor people that worked for them. It was feudal "capitalism". There wasn't much of a "middle class" or "rising middle class". Of course, a democracy can't work in those conditions. There were fraudulent elections, coups and, of course, the response of the mass of the poor was either following the few intelectuals of the elite that proclaimed comunism as the solution, or to cling to father figures in goverment(Perón). The people were slaves, treated as slaves, and then reacted as slaves.

[drats]

>It depends how you measure quality.

Aggregate stats across a number of areas plus opinion is a reasonable measure, albeit imperfect. Again I have provided many stats and figures and nobody has provided anything contrary other than assertions (and in one case cast some doubt over the Internet penetration). One would suspect that if the education is so good in Argentina people would have better researched arguments (ok that's a low blow, but people are downvoting). Feel free to provide another measure though. I don't think the roles will be reversed, though it might come out even under another measure as they are close in this one.

I think we broadly agree on your other point.

[demian]

My intention wasn't to provide another index, but to discard the index system as a mesure for something more than what the index actually mesures. For example: the abstract, subjective and esoteric education "quality".