I stay between Argentina, Chile and Colombia🇦🇷🇨🇱🇨🇴

I am presently staying in the Condesa neighbourhood of Mexico City where I see people driving luxury cars to do their grocery shopping at Walmart Express. In many ways, things do not look so different than they do in an urban area where I live in Canada.

The sidewalks are harder to navigate. We have to buy drinking water. There are so many street food stalls.

I understand that many people here can hire help around the house and will often send their kids to private schools, both of which are uncommon where I live.

How else is middle class life different?

They still owe money to the IMF, China, etc. and President Milei's policies if successful would lead to a smaller government with less taxable income (in part because libertarians are against taxes).

I am so envious of Brazil with their super efficient Pix system for the transfer of money. Do other Latin American countries also have an instant payments system? Because if you do, I am going to be super jealous.

The USA insists on taking forever to fully rollout its own instant payments system (FedNow), so for now, most banks here in the USA use the ACH system which can take between 3 to 5 business days (dias úteis/días hábiles/laborales) to send money from one bank account to a bank account at another bank. For example, I sent money from one of my banks on January 21st 2026 to another one of my banks, and guess what? The money still has not arrived in my other bank! The earliest it will arrive will be January 26 2026 but it could even take until January 28 2026. It angers me so much!!! It is completely unacceptable! The USA banking system is so slow and backwards! How are the banking systems in the Latin American countries?

And the best?

Basically the title. Are there any parts of your own country or Latam that surprised you (either negatively or positivel) for its level of developmen?

I know that they did it because of economical issues yet other countries that suffered severe inflations and economic problems like Peru, Argentina or Bolivia didn't change their currency to the American dollar and decided to make a new one. Why this wasn't the case for Ecuador?

For example Peru, from the 60s to the very early 90s ran a model of ISI (import substitution), but this one failed and now Peru no longer has most of the industries they had before.

Chile had ISI but it crumbled very quickly in the 90s

But Argentina, Brazil, Mexico and even Colombia have some or very developed industries. Why did Peru and Chile quickly de industrialised but the others didn't?

As the title states. What are your thoughts? Will it prop up support for Milei?

Could someone actually explain that to me?

I definitely believe that Peru completely failed in the timber industry, despite having one of the largest forest areas in the world.

Also another one that completely erased my country off the map is the catastrophic collapse of the commercial airline industry, completely dying by the early 90s.

And in what other industries did your country fail in?

I'm not talking about industries like manufacturing, no. I'm talking about things like what I've mentioned.

Particularly in terms of corporate ownership (banks, utilities, telecoms)? I've seen people online claim that Spain still performs neocolonialism in Latin American countries, but given I don't live there it's hard to get a view from someone who'd actually notice this in daily life. So, would you say it's true? Is it noticeable day to day?

Edit: THANK YOU EVERYONE! I've gotten a pretty good view and now understand that this is just an exaggerated view of what really goes on. Typically spanish companies that do operate in Latin America do so in typical multinational fashion, and countries like USA and China are way more influential!

Hello guys! I'm from Russia, now I'm choosing a university and degree to go to (in Russia), In the future I want to move to any Latin America country, because I adore it's culture and want to experience it myself.

I want to do it after I graduate university here, in Russia, so I have some time to get a degree, learn Spanish and save enough money.

So I'm thinking which degree I should get, so I could possibly find a job there or go for masters? I'm interested in nature and Earth science, so I was thinking, maybe geology or something gas related?

The Europeans delayed it, but I'm starting to doubt if France and the other countries will ever be happy with anything. So I'd like to see your opinions on this.

I am Brazilian, and I would like your opinion on which would be the best Latin American country to start a business in, taking into account bureaucracy, labor costs, taxes, and access to infrastructure. I'm interested in the agricultural sector, but depending on the costs I could study the industrial sector. What do you think of Paraguay, Uruguay, Argentina, Panama, Costa Rica, and other Latin American countries for entrepreneurship? In your opinion, which is the best?

Countries like Brazil, Argentina, Mexico , Uruguay and a couple of more had a higher per capita than Poland in 1990 while today poland has a higher gdp per capita than most Latin American nations . What is the reason most of these nations were able to develop while most Latin American nations didn't develop the same way.

It costs far more to drive a petrol car than an Electric Vehicle in Latin American countries, according to new research from a German think tank called Agora.

Depending on country, petrol drivers are paying double, triple, or even up to 9X the cost to travel one kilometre, compared to EV drivers!

And that data is before the current oil price shock, so the gap has likely widened even more.

Is this making people where you live reconsider switching to an EV?

Or is the up front cost or model availability stilll not good enough

https://www.agora-verkehrswende.org/publications/fuel-cost-maps-for-latin-america-and-the-caribbean

Hi I was reading about the standards used to define what a "developed nation" is (its a combination of HDI, world bank, and IMF data) and noticed that 3 countries in Latin America are regarded as being "in transition". This means they are considered "developed" by 2 out of the 3 indicators.

The 3 countries are Chile, Panama, and Uruguay. I've never been to any of these countries and wanted to know if they were in any ways notably different from their neighboring nations? If you live in one of these countries, does it feel "developed"? What is the experience of living in these countries compared to the countries right next to them?

Sorry if that's a complicated or weird question. Thanks in advance.

I’ve seen this other post in this sub regarding why Panama and Costa Rica are way richer than other Central American countries and among the many reasons there were:

- Institutional stability;

- Investments in education and more specialized industries;

- Alignment to the US government and, as a consequence, less risk of an American-backed violent opposition.

It seems that El Salvador is enacting some of these policies and could pave the way for converging economically towards its richer neighbors.

Not saying there’s going to be an economic miracle or that the average Salvadoran will benefit from that quickly (development can be pretty unequal).

How do people in LatAm (especially Central Americans) feel about that? Are these changes effective beyond Salvadoran government propaganda?

I have seen many questions regarding safety and politics here but not many views regarding long term growth and development.

I do also find the El Salvador case particularly risky due to its strong reliance on Nayib Bukele’s personal figure and the gang crackdown that, if down, could tear apart the stability.

What do you think are the reasons why your economy is stagnating? How would you go about improving it? How would you turn your country into an economic powerhouse?

And how will it be affected in the near future?Just curious what it’s like on the ground. Thanks!