A Year in Uruguay

Since Uruguay is in the Southern hemisphere the seasons are reversed. While it's the middle of the summer in Kalamazoo, it's the middle of the winter in Montevideo. Winter there is pretty mild compared to Michigan.

Today's weather in Montevideo:

Labels: seasons, Uruguay

The Spanish version of the Miami Herald (El Nuevo Herald) recently ran a story headlined:
"Chile, Brasil, Uruguay y Venezuela, los países más caros de Suramérica>" saying that Uruguay was one of the most expensive places to live in South America.

I was a bit concerned since our budget for the year is based on the idea that Uruguay will be cheaper than Kalamazoo. My Spanish wasn't strong enough to really understand the details of the article. My wife, who is fluent, read it and she thought the economics concepts weren't defined clearly, so it was difficult to interpret the article. I found this English version (First Results of the International Comparison Program in South America - Household Consumption in 2005) and I have to agree: it's the economics not the language that's giving me trouble. I'm not sure I should feel good as a novice Spanish speaker, or bad as an experienced economist.

In trying to interpret the article, I did find something more comforting:

"Asuncion in Paraguay remains the least expensive city globally, in 144th position with a score of 43.5. Other cheap cities include Buenos Aires, Montevideo and Caracas in 142nd place (score 54.8.), 138th (56.5) and 136th (57.2) respectively." from Mercer Human Resources Global Cost-of-Living Survey – 2006.

If Montevideo is one of the cheapest cities in the world right now, I guess I don't need to be too concerned about its relative ranking in South America.

Labels: economics, Uruguay

These weren't show cars, but regular means of transportation. (Summer 1998)

Labels: cars, Uruguay