Google Unable To Keep Paying App Developers In Argentina 169
An anonymous reader writes "Google has sent letters to app developers registered in Argentina saying they won't be able to accept payments on developers' behalf after June 27th. 'The change applies to both paid apps and apps that use in-app purchases. The move appears to be related to new, restrictive regulations the Argentine government has imposed on currency exchanges.' According to the Telegraph, 'The new regulations required anyone wanting to change Argentine pesos into another currency to submit an online request for permission to AFIP, the Argentine equivalent of HM Revenue & Customs. To submit the request, however, you first needed to get a PIN from AFIP, either online or in person. Having finally obtained your number, submitted your online request and printed out your permission slip, you could then present it at the bank or official cambio and buy your dollars. Well, that was the theory. In practice, the result was chaos. ... damming the flood has come at a huge cost to the economy, especially since the currency restrictions were coupled with another set of regulations that effectively imposed a near-total ban on any imported goods.'"
Re:We're from the government, and here to help you (Score:5, Interesting)
It is even worse in Venezuela,
The government printed money like crazy which caused really high inflation. So how does the government fight inflation? they add price control, which causes scarcity, and currency control which kills imports. Here is a video [youtube.com] showing people that got wind that there was corn meal, chicken and some other products in a supermarket
Re:Nicely done Cristina (Score:4, Interesting)
Yes, but it implies a very high rate of inflation. And it matters if you are trying to import anything – like toilet paper, where there has been a recent run.
Re:Another currency? (Score:4, Interesting)
Or just a field which said "bank account". Currency is not really an important factor.
If you don't get paid in your bank accounts native currency they nickle and dime you on the exchange rate; so it does matter.
I have multiple accounts at the same bank in different currencies. I direct funds based on the currency and do bulk exchanges ONLY if I need to and at a time when the rate is desirable.
Re:We're from the government, and here to help you (Score:2, Interesting)
Currency control... done (just with higher limits)
Printing money like crazy... done.
Price controls... started with rent, then health care
Looks like Obama has us moving in that direction.
Yes, currency export restrictions greatly preceded Obama but his "brothers in ideology" are behind all the rent control policies.
Pay them in Bitcoin. (Score:4, Interesting)
Problem solved.
Seriously. It is better then having nothing and it is possible the dev could actually cash it in. Bigger devs could have an overseas bank account and get payment into that. Smaller devs could get products delivered to them internationally. It does not solve every problem, but it is better then no payment.
My wife is an Argentinian... (Score:2, Interesting)
And we travel every year to visit the family. If you say nobody likes the government, but at the same time I see most of my family support it (yes, we are a very small portion of the population), and Cristina Fernández won the last elections (and the economic measures we are arguing here were already in place) with 58% (against 16% of the second-best candidate)... I find it quite hard to swallow that you say "nobody likes the government". No, there is no suc violence or vote buying as you mention (and I as a Mexican can very well spot vote buying and coertion). What happens is that we seldom see beyond our class-level. The country has over 40 million people, many of them way poorer than your average Slashdot poster. And they have really got their lives better since the ultra-free-market nonsense of the 1990s was stopped, after the big 2001-2002 crisis.
As a middle-class Mexican, I'd love to have the public education, health and security systems Argentina has. In fact, those three are important reasons why we regularly consider moving there.
Re:Summary is Crap (Score:5, Interesting)
Corrected version of above:
Argentina is likely the right place to look at when you want to see the results of a government being more involved instead of less. Shocked by the Great Depression, like many other countries Argentina turned to a strongman. Once in power, Peron did a deep change to the country, and Argentina swiftly fell from being one of the wealthiest countries in the world to a basket case. Now, instead of being as rich per capita as the US or Switzerland (like it was in the 1920s), it's in the same economic class as Russia and Botswana.
Despite this abject failure, the media can't point this out, because people will label them as traitors. It's extremely hard for Argentinians to be entrepreneurs in this context of unremediated Peronism, which has wrecked the Argentine economy.