Our special envoy estate, Monsieur Kelo we pass this note from Christine Legrand June 23, 2009
Link:
http://www.lemonde.fr/archives/article/2009/06/23/la -salt-marche-des-pauvres-de-buenos-aires-attire-Désormais-la-classe-moyenne_1210280_0.html
It is still dark and soothing background music, cumbia, hundreds of people pour into the narrow alleys of La Salada. This is one of the largest informal markets in Latin America. At the border between the city and province of Buenos Aires, three warehouses covering 20 hectares. A maze in the middle of slums and vacant lots covered with garbage. A picture of Third World Argentina, only 20 kilometers from Buenos Aires, who broke into the campaign for parliamentary elections on Sunday, June 28 The Salada
opens on Sundays and Thursdays, from dawn until early afternoon. Its turnover is estimated to 6 million per week. It employs 6,000 people and receives up to 50,000 visitors per day come from the poor suburbs of Buenos Aires, but also other provinces, and even Brazil or Paraguay, organized shopping tours, aboard Hundreds of buses. The wholesalers sell the goods on other informal markets.
Despite the human tide, almost religious silence reigns. Little is said, to request a price or size. No changing rooms or invoices. You must pay in cash. The clothes, which are worth half as much as in the capital, are manufactured in sweatshops employing a workforce cheap and black.
In the 15 000 stands, you can buy everything: watches, electronics, CDs, DVDs, lingerie and wigs. "Everything here is Trucho (forged)", launches a kid, laughing that sells baby turtles and small parrots crammed into a shoebox.
The Chambers denounced La Salada as a temple of counterfeiting and a paradise of tax evasion, one of the scourges of Argentina. A 2007 survey by the European Union (EU) on piracy has designated as a mecca of commerce and the production of counterfeit goods.
Conversely, La Salada has been defended by a young economist trained in the United States, Alfonso Prat Gay, former president of the Central Bank and the centrist candidate in the parliamentary elections. For this defender of SMEs, the workers of La Salada are "contractors who take risks." He denounces the hypocrisy of a country where tax evasion is the main large fortunes and large enterprises.
About 40% of Argentines are moonlighting, tax evasion reached 40% in agriculture, 54% industry, 73% in construction, according to the Tax Agency of the Province of Buenos Aires (ARBA ). His former manager, Sergio Montoya, who has distanced himself from The Kirchner government has called in vain for a crusade against the salad.
But the province of Buenos Aires is crucial at election time. That is where will the future of the presidential couple formed by President Cristina Kirchner and her husband, former President Nestor Kirchner, candidate for a parliamentary seat. The province accounts for 40% of voters. The majority live patronage of local authorities.
"Salad is a thermometer of the country," says Enrique Antequera, one of the leaders of the market. Galloping inflation and the crisis led to a decrease of 40% of popular consumption. The market poor now welcomes middle-class customers, who have dropped their prejudices and comfort of luxurious shopping malls. Affirming
pay municipal taxes, Mr. Antequera admits that the majority of goods from La Salada are imitations. "But here, at least it gives work to thousands of Argentines and it offers products for those who can not afford sneakers to 80 euros," he defends.
"In Buenos Aires, clothing prices have doubled in one year," added Marta, a psychologist who came shopping with her husband and brother. It never goes alone to the salad, for fear of jostling and theft.
A handful of Bolivians, who sold imported clothes and offered cheap food, launched the site in 1991. Under the presidency of General Juan Peron in the 1950s, these lands were abandoned pools popular with salt water, hence the name La Salada.
strong stench rising from the Riachuelo river, which separates the province of Buenos Aires and the capital, severely contaminated. For twenty years, successive governments have promised to clean. Unanswered. On the shore, throngs of children playing with kites. They may dream of fleeing one of the most unhealthy suburbs of Buenos Aires. Christine Legrand
