By Alexei Barrionuevo for nytimes.comBUENOS AIRES — Damian Vásquez used to regularly update the prices of household cleaning products on the sign outside his store. Today he often does not bother. Inflation has been causing prices to rise so fast that he grew tired of the effort to keep up.
“When prices stabilize a little, I write the new prices,” said Mr. Vásquez, 27. “But lately prices have been changing almost weekly.”
High inflation — a weakness of the Argentine economy for decades — is soaring again. Independent economists say inflation rose by 25 to 30 percent in 2010, the highest level since the calamitous 2002 devaluation that sent the economy into a tailspin.
This time around, the pain is already being felt by the poor. Food-price increases began to outstrip wage increases in 2010, leading Argentines to buy less food, private economists say. And many in the middle and upper classes are leaning more heavily on credit cards, helping push up levels of personal debt.
While a return to the kind of hyperinflation that swept Argentina in the 1970s and 1980s — when retailers sometimes updated prices hourly — seems unrealistic to most, inflation shows no sign of abating and is calling into question the success of.. Read full article
