Express View on Argentina’s inflation: Carpe diem, Buenos Aires

The words “let them eat cake” are finding a new spin in Buenos Aires. The Argentinian capital, one of the most cosmopolitan cities in the world, is seeing a restaurant boom thanks to historic inflation — which has gone over 100 per cent — and a crashing peso.

What portenos (residents of Buenos Aires) are saying, apparently, is that if their money is to have no value tomorrow or the day after, why not spend it on something enjoyable today, that if they can no longer afford to buy a car or go on a vacation, why not splurge on a good meal in one of Buenos Aires’s top-notch restaurants? This consumer sentiment has led to a sharp upswing in the fortunes of the city’s restaurants, with the owners of many putting their profits into more new eateries.

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If there is any wisdom to be gleaned from this attitude, it is the one about seizing the day. When the Roman poet Horace composed the phrase “carpe diem” over 2,000 years ago, the corollary to his coinage was the understanding that it is far better to trust in the here and now, than in an unknowable future. This is what the people in the Argentinian capital seem to be doing so far. They are trusting that, at a time when interest on savings is lower than inflation, putting their hard-earned pesos into the pleasures of the present — an ojo de bife (classic ribeye steak), considered one of the best in the world, a glass of Malbec from the vineyards of Mendoza — is a far safer bet. Perhaps there will be a price to pay in the future — the poverty rate rose to 39.2 per cent in the second half of 2022 — but until then, as they say in Argentina, buen provecho!