Ferfal on Surviving the Economic Meltdown
This interview with Fernando “Ferfal” Aguirre follows our review of his recent book, The Modern Survival Manual: Surviving the Economic Collapse.
To what extent has control in Argentina actually been reasserted since 2001? Are conditions now more or less back to pre-crisis circumstances? If not, what remains to be done, and have you found the role of the people in government diminished as it attempts to rebuild? What businesses came out on top a la Goldman Sachs (so far) ? What industries came out stronger?
Conditions will never be like they were pre 2001. Yes, the anarchy only lasted a few weeks during December 2001, and control has been of course restored. What we have now is a different reality. We now live clearly in a 3rd world status in most regards. We still have a large and somewhat sophisticated capital like Buenos Aires, but then over half of the middle class became poor in a matter of months. We now have 50 % of the population in poor class and over 20% of the population BELOW poverty line. These are people that don’t make enough money to buy the required calories for a minimum diet.
We lost our president in 2001 and we lost the continuity of our democracy. That has long lasting results. We now have an authoritarian presidential marriage (Mr. and Mrs. Kirchner) and we are slowly becoming more and more like Venezuela. This will take many years if not decades to revert. The damage is long lasting. It will take a lot of time before we have serious institutions, a believable country plan that extends beyond a couple months, and we regain the trust form foreign investors.
In a nutshell the business that came out on top were either the ones that bribed their way through with the local power or the smart businessmen that satisfied the market needs left empty by the collapsing government apparatus. Private schools and private transportation, private security and such.
These are the ones that found the opportunity within the crisis.
You state that after SHTF, the prevalence of bribing went up. What was it like before? He also mentions that some areas became no-go for law enforcement except in numbers. To what extent was this simply because of community discontent and poverty, or was there more of a Balkanization based on ethnicities, gangs, etc? What effect did the situation have on gangs overall? What happened to drug prices? (an important question in terms of figuring how the cartels are funded)
We already had corruption before. Now its simply worse, more outspread and almost mandatory if you want to get about anything done.
Some of the villas and settlements, they go on for several blocks and are so intricate and the criminal population is so large, its just very hard to get inside. In some operations hundreds of police officers were needed to have the required number of manpower to get someone out of there, and even with those numbers, there was intense gunfire.
The authorities simply prefer to find other ways, and avoid that kind of publicity were the video looks very much like a war zone.
Fuerte Apache, many of the villas, they are places where cops mostly prefer to avoid.
For Fuerte Apache it was required to use the military to keep the area somewhat pacified. Even then there’s lots of crime and intense gunfights in those areas.
As for drugs, the same principle I insist on was used: Adapt to the new market.
The drug dealers did just that. They started offering the cheapest drug ever offered in Argentina… and the most lethal and addictive: Paco.
Made using the waste of cocaine, Paco is smoked and its estimated that ½ of the males in the Buenos Aires suburbs between ages 18 and 35 are Paco addicts.
Of course, we have the worst drug abuse situation ever seen in our country.
Lack of future for the new generations, poverty, unemployment and a corrupt government that only pays off “muscle” for protests and political support is a lethal combination where Paco and other drug and alcohol abuse easily festers.
You are a younger man with a history of comparatively few injuries. Any thought to how you will modify your training in empty hand as you get older? Randy Coture, a mountain in the MMA, is now 46. Coture is a one in a million specimen. Most will have to adapt their ideas of defense well before then, depending on conditions and how well the body gets treated. You say in the book that boxing and BJJ (Brazilian jujitsu) are the poles of your training- I submit the poles should become a tripod, and pressure point/soft tissue focus ought to be the third leg. Any thought to studying the internal/”soft” styles, enough so to address this systematically?
The more tools you have, the better, but I think there’s simply no substitute for force on force, not only delivering punishment freely but also being able to take it.
This requires a strong body and sooner or later age affects us all, so absolutely, you have to adapt as you get older. Once I know I can’t take a beating, I’ll know its time to adapt my strategy.
What to do? Many things. As for senior h2h fighting, I’d stick to more simple moves as I grow older, give the loss of flexibility and then strength. Keep training with weapons, staying proficient with edged weapons as well. The older you get, the craftier and trickier you should be.
One reader once told me that after reading my book, given his disability to perform well physically, he made sure he walked everywhere with a couple of Dogo Argentino dogs. Keeps them close when at home too. I can’t argue with that, I think its pretty smart.
Let me tell you, even Randy “The Natural” Couture would be in a world of pain (blood and teeth) facing a Dogo Argentino protecting his owner. Street fighting and self-defense are not supposed to be fair.
You detail how so much economic activity during the crisis went at least “gray” if not black, and the widespread use of foreign currency. An important point you make though, on a number of fronts, is that the pre-existing order doesn’t actually go away, contrary to the Mad Max scenarios so favored by some. To that extent, how much did the government of Argentina spend trying to recoup taxes when things were at their most chaotic? Were there Argentinian IRS agents doing some version of street audits on businesses and large transactions ? Once things stabilized, were there widespread audits on businesses after the fact to make sure numbers matched up ?
The Argentine version of IRS went absolutely nuts, became worse and worse as time goes by. Not only are they used as a tool to get as much money as possible out of what’s left of the middle class, they are also very corrupt, often freezing business accounts just to ask for a bribe if you want that … “mistake” … to be solved within a reasonable amount of time.
All privacy laws are violated in order to collect as much money as they can. For example, during the World Soccer Cup, people that bought big screen TVs were considered high profile people and taxed heavily. They used google maps to check who had pools in their homes and tax them accordingly because of this “luxury”. I’m not inventing anything, this was all proudly announced as smart maneuvers by the government to collect more.
After things went wrong, was there ever any concerted effort by the people or criminal groups to target the financial manipulators and government mechanisms that were perceived to have allowed the crisis to develop? Any vigilante attacks against public figures?
No, not really. People are mostly law-abiding citizens and criminals? … they love times like these were they can basically get away with everything. De la Rua and a couple of other politicians were blamed for everything, De la Rua is being charged because of the murders during the riots of December 2001 but he’s still free. But no, no vigilante activity.
Along with the regular inconvenience of government writ large, you state in your book that it is likely firearm confiscation, post-SHTF, will become a priority for a government attempting to reassert its monopoly on violence. There is some basis for this, as you cited gun round ups post-hurricane Katrina. Considering how vital the ability to defend oneself against grave threats can be in a breakdown of order, and how few tools government may have to contain it, at what point do you see a justification for Americans to consider things “too far gone” to trust the government any more ? While recent USSC rulings seem to have solidified private ownership, the fear in the US is that ammunition may be regulated so heavily or taxed so thoroughly that it would become a de facto ban. Any thoughts on the Obama administration’s move on the UN Small Arms treaty, which has potential if adopted to put handloaders in jail and regulate privately owned firearms as if they were battlefield weapons?
I think Katrina was a good example. When guns were needed the most they were taken away from the people. I think there’s not much to do. When dealing when such obvious criminal, anti-constitutional activity, I think it the people’s obligation to hide their weapons and yes, lie to protect their God given, constitutional right to self defense.
Notice how people were naïve and answered yes when asked if they had weapons.
People, lets put this into context: There’s chaos because of the flooding/hurricane/earthquake and mercenaries are going around taking the weapons away from people. You have a constitution that backs you up. You have a right to lie to these criminals so as to keep the tool that enables you to protect yourself and your family.
It’s no different than a Blood or Crips gang member asking you the same question.
People, your life is more important.
The way to prepare for such a disaster is to buy a couple firearms with no paper trail, some ammo and keep them cached somewhere else as your tyranny kit. Having said that, under those conditions, I’d get busy to move out of the country as fast as I can.
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