Trouble in Paradise?

Many times, the downside and the inevitable trade-offs of a newly discovered vacation, travel, real estate or property investment hot spot, are swept under the rug. We’ve tied to be balanced in our assessment. In our unbiased approach, we’ve pointed out some issues that are not ideal in Uruguay or it’s Coast.

In perhaps Uruguay’s oldest English language blog From Uruguay, an article called, Ten Things I Hate About Living in Uruguay grabbed my attention. (Link at the end of this article.) We appreciate this work for two reasons. First, it’s written by a Uruguayan. Second, it identifies the primary stumbling block to economic development and prosperity in Uruguay.

The most striking parallel to our thinking in the From Uruguay article, is item two, Conservative Lazy Mentality. This label sounds a little harsh, but it echoes the exact point made in our post, Uruguay, Spain Redux? (See the Futurism/History section in this publication) For all the wonderful positives of the people and this pristine country…..creativity, entrepreneurship and risk taking are for all practical purposes, non-existent.

We feel this lack of creativity and entrepreneurial spirit is the source of most, if not all of Uruguay’s problems. For instance, the lack of job opportunity is the driving force behind the mass exodus of highly educated and talented young people. This is an economic neutron bomb. The talent is lost, gone; the result is stagnation. Just as important, these bright, motivated youngsters are educated at the expense of the people. (Higher education is free for the most part here.) When these kids emigrate, it’s an economic disaster of epic proportions.

The government might as well go to the airport with sacks of money, and each with a note saying, “Thank you Spain for taking care of our dinero!”

Another item on the list, Lack of Jobs and Opportunities, is simply a manifestation of the lack of creative, entrepreneurial, risk-taking spirit.

There’s one striking divergence between From Uruguay’s view and our experience. This is the issue of crime. One of the things we love about the Coast is the near absence of crime. The Coast is gentile, and laid-back for the most part. The author’s complaints are directed at life in Montevideo. While the city is not a crime capital, burglary and petty theft are rampant. Montevideo can be pretty rugged.

We’re trilled to report our role as Agents of Change hasn’t gone unnoticed. We’re fortunate to have attracted a new team member, Santiago de Tezanos. Santiago is an architect in Montevideo; he does business on four continents. Get this, very little of his work is in Uruguay! His company is a shinning example of what can be for this country. Santiago will be sharing his story and professional know how with you in the coming months.

In closing, let my say this. We do not accept, “es lo que hay” (That’s the way it is.) We do not accept the lack of jobs for young people. We do not accept the opportunity vacuum. We believe people can do more and be more.

The link to the From Uruguay article is below.

From Uruguay

Steve Bowman
Publisher/Editor

Make a Comment

16 Responses to “Trouble in Paradise?”

Hi -I read a few days ago in the Daily news, translated into english,from a govt. official that tourist in Punta del Este are selling their homes because of all the crime this past summer.
Vern
May 18, 2007

Vern-
Crime is probably a bit more of a problem than in the past, but compared to Montevideo, it’s nill. Compared to almost anywhere in the world, La Punta is pretty easy. The issue in La Punta is people that are leaving their houses unattended for months on end and the resulting burglaries.

Piriapolis and Jose Ignacio have almost zero crime that I can tell.
Steve Bowman
May 18, 2007

hi
peter jones
May 19, 2007

Peter, are you back in England?
Steve Bowman
May 19, 2007

Hello Steve,

It seems that I feel the same way about Uruguay as you. I lived in Spain for 3 years and loved the lifestyle, but I suspect Uruguay has a lot more to offer a person like myself, namely, obscurity, undefiled beach front property, business opportunities, and a Mediterranean culture to boot. Whereas Spain is in the midst of a real estate bubble, Uruguay is just now recovering from the 2002 economic crisis. If I were to purchase real estate there, I feel that I’d be starting from the ground up. I’ve been wanting to confirm these feeling for a long time which is why I’ve decided to visit your neck of the woods.

Kind regards,

Bill Martinez

PS: a few more details about myself. I speak fluent Spanish, was born and raised in the Chicago area, have a web based business, and am interested in obtaining Uruguayan citizenship in the future.
Bill Martinez
May 19, 2007

Punta del Este is a glorious and wonderful safe
place.If you have safety concerns, keep your
doors and windows closed just like you would
anywhere else.An alarm system will help if you
have to go away often and will also give you
added peace of mind if you do not.
peter jones
May 20, 2007

Bill-

Welcome on board! There are goods things possible here. If you have a web based business, this may be a very good place for you.

Keep reading Coastal Uruguay. Santiago, are new columnist, does business on the web with customers all over the world. This kind of opportunity may apply to you.

Steve
Steve Bowman
May 20, 2007

Uruguay is so simiiar to Ireland 20 years ago,
same population with the smartest young people
seeking opportunities elsewhere.The then
government gave great tax benefits and shouted
about them.Businesses flocked there and now
Ireland has the best economy in the world.
Thanks to people like Steve, Uruguay is no
longer the secret that it was a couple of
years ago .With the right sort of marketing
and an urgent resolution of the paper mill
dispute,Uruguay could be another Ireland
peter jones
May 20, 2007

Peter-

Thanks again for all the kind words!

If you feel what we’re doing is valuable, please mention us on other blog sites. Leave the URL or site name on your comment. Building the Brand is a word of mouth, one stone at a time thing.

Building traffic on Coastal Uruguay will help pile the stones at a faster rate.

Steve
Steve Bowman
May 20, 2007

If you go to http://www.ft.com you will find 7 or 8
articles about Uruguay published by the
Financial Times on the 14th May

.
peter jones
May 22, 2007

Peter-

I noticed the FT articles. They are going to backdrops for coming articles on Coastal Uruguay.
Steve Bowman
May 22, 2007

With all the highly educated young people here, I am wondering why more of them don’t go into business for themselves, rather than leave the country in order to work for someone else. Not everyone is cut out to be an entrepreneur, true, but surely some must be. Jobs don’t grow on trees; people start businesses and employ other people — that’s where jobs come from. What is standing in the way? Government regulations? Cultural mindset/expectations? Lack of education about starting and running a business? Lack of capital? Or do people simply prefer to seek their opportunities in other countries?
Shirley
May 23, 2007

Shirley-

As we talk about in the article, this is not a business culture. If people don’t start businesses, there are no jobs. Entrepreneurs ARE the people that open businesses.

No entrepreneurs, no jobs.
Steve Bowman
May 23, 2007

You need capital to start a business and that
comes from savings.Wages are very low for most
people and they struggle to make ends meet.
That said there are a lot of small businesses
and there has been a very noticeable increase
in prosperity over the last 3 or 4 years.
Recent articles about Uruguay in the Financial
Times are very positive.
peter jones
May 23, 2007

A Uruguayan here.
Well, what’s stopping people from starting businesses in Uruguay is a litany of factors. Capital is non-existent 8 years out of any given decade, and makes a brief appearance usually just in time for people to load up on debt (venture capital/equity investment is not very common either) before an economic crash that will submerge the country in a 5 year recession. Assuming 8 years are spent either being in or recovering from a recession, over a decade a business may have two years in which to make real money, and that better last a long time…

Lazy, conservative, pessimistic. Yes, all of the above. When I threw a party for a business expansion on Jan. 5 2002, our Uruguayan guests gave us their condolences, and looked at us as if we were insane.
“You come from abroad and think it’s going to be easy, but it will not be easy,” said one “friend”.
“You think that increasing your store’s size six-fold involves just filling it with more of the same stuff? It doesn’t work that way,” said another, a celebrated business consultant who teaches MBA courses in Buenos Aires.
“This is soooo big….” said my aunt, with the same face she would say “her cancer is soo terminal”.
You get the picture. So, it is true that for a vast majority of Uruguayans the first answer to anything is “NO” or “No se puede” (Can’t be done). It is true that there is a natural pathological aversion to risk and innovation and change. For example, in my line of business, not one single supplier will come up to me with new models, no matter how much I beg for them. However, the minute they notice one of my items is a big seller in my store, they will copy it and just blanket the market with it. Pretty soon, half a dozen other people will be copying his copy.
Laziness, there is no work ethic or work culture. Work is something you go to and come back from, not something you do. In the worst of the economic crisis we still could not staff our store in Punta del Este. People with housing in Punta del Este, without a job and relying on parent’s or who knows whose money for a living, would refuse to move to Punta, or to commute from Montevideo. They would rather leech off their families than sleep on a bus or live 2 hours away from friends and family. (my brother commuted to University for many years in the opposite direction, IT CAN BE DONE)

The staff we have managed to hire over the years, with some exceptions, let’s say at the most 25% to 40%, require hourly reminders to carry out their duties, as if they were amnesiac or mentally disabled. Except they are not. My brother jokes that my Mom runs a school for the mentally retarded…

We also have a couple of cases per year of theft of money and clients and merchandise and suppliers. That has been a constant for 27 years. This has happened with a staff of between 5 and 12, so the percentage is scary. Some went as far as stealing their co-workers money.

So, many reasons why young Uruguayans such as myself once upon a time, decide to emigrate. Frankly, if you are a Uruguayan, your effort has a very low rate of return, so you might as well invest it elsewhere, especially when you are young. I remember being in my teens and realizing that Uruguay discriminates against youth. It’s a country of old people, very European…
And very Spanish too, especially Galician, the most conservative of all, probably.

So, now that I’m officially middle-aged, that I have some source of income outside the country, that I have injected foreign-generated capital into our family business, I’m ready to return
Margarita
July 13, 2007

[…] Uruguay has covered this ground in vivid detail. This one article sums up the case against it: Trouble In Paradise. I don’t want to rehash a well-covered topic; let’s just say as an entrepreneur, it would be […]
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