[planetguy]

The Big Mac index as of January:

http://www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail/2012/01/daily-c...

Argentina was already close to the top, with a Big Mac going for $US4.94, not entirely crazy by any means. (On the other hand, given that you can get a full three-course steak dinner with wine in a nice restaurant for $US20 in Argentina I wonder who is eating these Big Macs). A 25% increase will take it up to something like $6.25, a little above Sweden.

The fact that the official exchange rate is 4.2 pesos to the dollar but Argentinians are willing to give you at least five pesos to the dollar in informal exchanges seems like a pretty bad sign.

The other interesting thing about that Big Mac index is that Argentina is one of the world's largest beef producers. So are Uruguay, Brazil and Australia, all clustered up there in overpriced burger land.

[molmalo]

> I wonder who is eating these Big Macs

Something you may not realize from there. Surprisingly, in Argentina, Mc Donnalds is not targeted to the lower classes, - a cheap lunch in a fast food. It's targeted to the middle and higher classes (mainly teenagers and young office workers).

I've been in Spain, England, France, and a few other countries, and I noted that their target there was certainly different. My explanation for this (I belive), is that here, teenagers just LOVE Brands (to the point that I think is crass).

Maybe an aftertaste of the nineties and the neoliberal movement.

[sardonicbryan]

Anecdotally, in Taiwan the quality of McDonald's is significantly higher than in the US. The quality of the meat and materials in particular.

[dguaraglia]

McDonalds (and other burger chains for that matter) has always been extremely expensive in Argentina, even during the 'golden age' of Carlos Menem (golden age from the American/globalized/free-market perspective). For the same money you could eat a McDonalds burger you can eat a 3 course lunch menu in Puerto Madero (one of Buenos Aires nicest parts).

But... kids love brands. That's why you see suckers using MacBook Pros to browse Facebook in the big malls, even when they cost about 3x what they cost in the US. Go figure. Maybe advertising works?

[molmalo]

> That's why you see suckers using MacBook Pros to browse Facebook in the big malls, even when they cost about 3x what they cost in the US

Exactly, it just seems so incredibly dumb from the government to block or put VERY high taxes to imported products that WILL NEVER be produced here (they make them in Brazil, to cover the whole region, they will not start to produce them in an adjacent country). They're begging for contraband. And I bet that a nice percentage of those boys who you see, using those MacBook Pros bought them from someone who sold it without paying the proper taxes...

[planetguy]

Actually, I apologize for replying to myself, but I couldn't resist going off and coming up with some numbers. There's a pretty darn strong and unexpected correlation between the price of a Big Mac and the number of cows per head population.

I could only get good cows-per-person numbers for the big beef producers, but here goes:

Country Cows per person Big Mac Price

Australia 1.28 $4.94

Argentina 1.26 $4.64

Brazil 1.07 $5.68

Colombia 0.59 $4.54

USA 0.31 $4.20

Mexico 0.29 $2.70

Pakistan 0.18 $2.89

Russia 0.15 $2.55

India 0.15 $1.62

China 0.06 $2.44

So there ya go, the more plentiful cows are the more it costs to get one cut up and put on a bun. (Or, perhaps, the more you can sell your beef for, the more likely you are to be a cattle rancher.)

[vacri]

Something that will also affect these numbers from my country: minimum wage. Minimum wage in the US is $7.50(ish). Minimum wage in Australia is $15, which wasn't so ridiculous before our dollar soared in the past couple of years. For quite a while, the $AU was $.50-60US, but is currently equal.

This means the burger costs more to make here due to labour costs, but also that people have higher numbers of dollars to spend on their burger.

[crander]

What is really means is that the supply of workers at $15/hour greatly outnumbers the demand for workers at $15/hour.