Paraguay’s Severe Problems
PART 2
Again continuing here, if you missed the first part, check it below. As a reminder, this is deliberately only focused on the negatives of Paraguay –not because the place is only negatives –but that there are never enough voices aiming to tell you the truth of the matter.
Paraguayan Facts
Being young, the worst place to work in the region is Paraguay:
📍 In the country, 7 out of 10 young people who work do so informally (low wages and without IPS registration)
📍 Only 40% of young people finish high school
📍Educational quality is alarmingly poor: only 50% of third graders understand basic texts, and a mere 10% of 15-year-olds achieve minimum competency in mathematics (you didn’t read that wrong, only 10% ACHIEVE minimum competency)
📍Paraguay ranks second to last among 80 countries in mathematics performance according to the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), with 7 out of 10 sixth graders struggling with reading comprehension.
📍Over half of the government does nothing; literally nothing
📍70% of all taxes paid fund this nothingness
📍Road traffic deaths are a leading cause of death among adolescents and young adults, with a rate of 22 deaths per 100,000 inhabitants; this equates to all of the homicides in a very violent country like Colombia, in traffic accidents (we had witnessed accidents three days in a row one week).
📍The country suffers from extremely high corruption, with a corruption and bribery problem rated very high at 88.81 out of 100; it’s impossible to do any set of processes without witnessing a cash bribe with government officials.
📍The “small government” country added at least 1,000 people to the city municipal payroll between 2020 and 2022 alone.
📍The number one crime motivator is not poverty or organized crime, it is REVENGE.
📍I was reading an Airbnb comment of a guy renting a place in a nicer area and he said they were next to a school thinking it was going to be alright and calm… but the woman teacher screams in a megaphone outside from 7am onward to the children who don’t listen.
📍Drug use, cattle hustling and petty thefts are on the rise, particularly amongst teenagers and youth, amounting to a significant percentage of losses by farmers annually.
Researched Business
Golf, with a spin! A good, spin!
The internet company lied 4 times, pushed the day off for 3 days and an 8 o’clock appointment ended up at 12:36. When they showed up, they got all of the information incorrect–>My experience
Welcome Criminals with Awesome Papers
Speaking of Criminals, Paraguay has a terribly high rate of attempted homicide (that is how they analyze it for it for some reason). In so far that the data is correct (it can never be accurate), the attempted homicide figures are about almost 4X higher than the actual homicide numbers (20.4 to 6.0/100,000)
In 2024, it emerged that some 500bn PYG ($70m) in bonds issued by City Hall and notionally destined for infrastructure projects had seemingly been diverted to different bank accounts;; 10s of millions of dollars of Covid spending went directly into bank accounts of politically connect personnel with no further inquiry
I recommend you cover this article here to read about how much money is diverted to bank accounts, companies and trusts that belong to the politicians who repeatedly lie that it is allocated to infrastructure, education and healthcare. Some even have the gall to complain that the reason why Asuncion is not a 1st world city is that not enough people pay their taxes or enough taxes.
I think that Paraguay is going to accelerate its adoption of cryptocurrency mining as a method of ushering more money from taxpayers into private accounts. Watch out for this.
Trusting Workers
- I don’t want to spill too much information on this point–but it’s worth noting that I am familiar with a Paraguayan family who has been hired to carry out tasks. It’s been leaked through a series of translations the intention to knowingly and happily DISOBEY orders since the owner will “never find out”.
- I know one older man who pays workers a healthy pay to manage his premises. The workers take a Tereré break (cold mate) every 45 minutes to 1 hour. When he only paid them for work hours, they threatened to cut down his fruit trees or simply set them on fire–and declared its their right to be paid for work undone.
- Another businessman spent 2 years trying to find a local worker able to find a worker to work without having to be told what job to do every time–he ended up hiring a foreigner for sometime before wrapping up operations.
In fact, I have yet to hear of a foreigner hiring a local to do a job without any complaints–> most of them being, late, slow, unable to grasp the task, argumentative, demanding, inefficient or criminal. This is one reason why I hadn’t proceeded with my charcoal venture.
Restaurants Anecdote
Funnily enough, we’ve had numerous times where their poor service and tardiness is compensated with an obvious lie. It’s like a sitcom or some sort of skit you’d see. We’ve been told that our food was burnt the first time around, that a blender was broken, that someone went home early, that the cook is on his break all after waiting 30 minutes to hear this…Rather than just get to it, they feel guilty if they’re not lying. Like a child explaining that it was their friend who ate the cookies.
It’s a country where music from a rooftop till 4am is deemed acceptable behaviour
Likewise, I have yet to come across a punctual restaurant, despite having no customers. If you’re looking at starting your own, chances are you’ll be faster than every single restaurant in the country. Travel a little bit and you’ll see “the low pay” excuse not holding up. I’m happy to discuss ideas with you
Scandal
A car accident at noon killing 4 people, including a 2 year old baby has created outrage as the guilty perpetrator has receded back into house arrest with no legal repercussions due to his familial connections with the courts. This episode reminded a number of expats that rule of law is as secure as Shariah Law courts
I’ve already named the rate of car accidents in the country but its worth reitterating they are immensely common in the country. The amount of motorcycle accidents a year stand out compared to the other countries and within the last 3 days of writing there has been a fatal car crash killing a 26 year old physician, a pedestrian killed upon impact and two public transit bus drivers racing each other with passengers before attacking each other with hammers.
Comments of these common crashes come as no surprise to the locals who may say that “walking in the cross walk is no safer than anywhere else, that people do not know how to drive, deliberately avoid a seat belt and may even aim at somebody from sudden anger”.
Another accident that made the news in an awful way was a papa hit by a young driver while riding his moto near Caacupé. He was put into an induced coma in Asunción after major brain surgery. No insurance. Family paying every cent alone. The worse part is when one of the family members did some investigation.
Once you are in the government even if you die your family has the right to have a position there. So once someone is in the government they can live from that forever- Paraguayan law
Prison Problem
Along with the rest of the city, the government of Paraguay are building new buildings specifically for prison services in an attempt to fix its overcrowding crisis. But the issue is not a lack of cells, it’s a broken and lethargic justice system. Just look at how many people are sitting in prison waiting for trial:
Crime and Robbery
Robberies are immensely common in the country and are heating up unfortunately. It’s not unusual for places to be robbed up to 6 times across the span of a few years; often a place that is successfully robbed once will experience it again months or years later. The most common robberies are ATMs, grocery stores, convenience stores, gas stations or even banks (though less and less). The police are as motivated and efficient as any bystander–they end up doing nothing. Security guards are also less than useless. Fortunately, most robberies I’ve come across do not end up fatal, but they are increasingly common. This can be tremendously mitigated if you’re living in the nicer areas but I commented on this as I’m not talking about a region of the city, but rather the entire country.
Cattle Crime
Cattle rustling is an activity that has also increased in recent years. It’s estimated that over 9 million cattle are stolen a year from farmers throughout the country. In some sense its a cost of doing business, but it definitely impacts the price of the final product for everybody.
In two days...
These headlines are not uncommon throughout the week, unfortunately. I personally know someone who has had their dog kidnapped. Why? Because the fellow wanted to sell it for a small amount.
A team member had also found a case of a 17-year old who rather than let someone keep the baby of his girlfriend, he killed her (& the baby) and set her on fire. Providing a trail of evidence like a scooby-doo cartoon, he was caught and sentenced to eight years; worse yet, his parents & best friend aided and encouraged the murder as a normal act. Both faced no penalties.
Are you ready for this?
Chacarita
I won’t pretend to know the ins and outs of this favela/barrio pobre but it’s worth mentioning that this is one of the worst areas in the country (in Asuncion). Oddly enough, its next to downtown centro and a long the nice (albeit polluted) riverfront. This area has murder, theft, kidnapping, assault, rape and prostitution as the norm. Aside from Ciudad del Este, it is likely going to be the only place that you will be told not to enter. It is a place where small gangs operate in a completely lawless fashion. The average home is a cardboard box and the successful can conjure a sheet of tin for a roof. It is miraculous how much trash is piled absolutely everywhere and people live amongst it. It’s very common to hear about gun shots being shot in the area or at someone in this region as well as knife attacks. Somebody I know had met a small boy from this region whose father is hiding after killing somebody else’s father over a small argument. Lawyer’s had told my friend.
This area and its people is costing 10s if not 100s of millions of damage to the country as it acts as a severe suppressant to development and maintenance of centro-Asuncion. Strangely, the Chacarita is located in some of the best area for real estate–but with most things, nothing is done about it. Why do something when you’re getting rich for doing nothing?
Foreigner Scam??
It could be that the fact that foreigners are arriving to the country is not a stimulative sign for the country, rather part of numerous plans. There is a move to destroy the country from within, to raise tax revenues to keep their theft machine turning and to legitimize their money-laundered real estate development properties.
Africans, Pakistani and Indians have begun posting more and more on Paraguay social media pages asking about residency and various details once they’ve arrived. This is a sudden unexpected change to foreigners and locals. I have seen and heard of numerous Africans frequenting the capital city now. A friend of mine have spotted a number of Africans wandering downtown and some Turkish men through the super market, again, first time spotted in Paraguayan history. Maybe you reckon this is “progress” as many Argentines or Paraguayans claim, but one look at Europe says otherwise.
It’s worth reminding you that they have removed the 5,000 USD requirement to obtain residency, making it far easier to usher people into the country to meet demand during financial difficulties. No complaints from me, but perhaps this was to usher in more middle Eastern and Africans
They’re not Foreign Friendly
One myth about Paraguayans are that they are smiley and friendly to foreigners but once you hear enough stories, witness the behaviour and live it–you can see this is bullshit. Paraguayans will tell you, the last thing you should do is to trust ANY Paraguayan. Paraguayan’s lack of rules and laws allow foreigns to set up shop here to criminally extort and rob other unsuspecting foreigners with absolutely no repercussions.
In every instance, if you remove money from the equation, their friendliness evaporates.
Politics
Many people coming from politically charged countries such as the UK, Canada and USA are eager to categorize other countries as being “right” or “left” depending on who is in office or what policy they have towards their favourite talking point. The reality is that these political conversations do not map well onto Latin American countries. It’s apples to oranges.
As an example, Paraguay often receives the title of being the “Christian, conservative” and “right-learning” country in the South America; but at the same time, there is no shortage of deception, degeneracy or corruption. If we contrast this with “left” leaning Uruguay where nearly everybody believes in the government, we find that private property rights are far more respected as is personal autonomy in law.
The point being is that there is no one size fits all with politics. Socially, Latin America is often very conservatives but they operate through enormous states and bureaucracies that resembles something of the Soviet Union.
Anesthetics
Power outages, despite being energy sufficient and exporting most of theirs to Brazil and Argentina, are common. The infrastructure is so poor it cannot handle the high demand for air conditioning, especially during a 3-4 month period. This is common year round in the outskirts of the country.
Sidewalks are almost always covered with trash, are broken or have tree roots protruding outward. I think an excellent gameshow would be to find a strip of 500m in the country where a mother could comfortable push a baby stroller in the city. It’d be quite the rat race to find it!
(I only posted this because of a Latin American I was with who was visibly upset that the nicer places were not unkept and felt like returning to his home country)
Loud and Rude
Paraguay is filled with people who talk loud, cause a mess wherever they are, set off fireworks at all hours of the clock (literally), play music all hours of the day and night, will rev an engine or beep a horn very loud at 5AM or 2AM without any care for the surrounding people sleeping. Sleeping is quite difficult in this “peaceful” country. We had one night where women were screaming for 5 and a half hours (similar to a girls night or a bridal shower?) on a megaphone which went on till 2:30AM in the morning (not sure why?). It would seem that manners and consideration for others are next to non-existent in many instances.
I’ve had rooftops playing music till 4AM freely for hundreds of residents to hear, without a car of people’s well-being or lives around them. Eh, maybe this isn’t only a Paraguay problem however.
The main point here should be: Any day is a potential party. There is no “I can’t, I have work in the morning” mentality.
Predictions
A chain of events are going to occur in the next 10-20 years causing the country to fall as soon as it rises.
Paraguay is the only place I’ve been where people enjoy setting off fireworks on a sunny day
- Paraguay has two paths in front of it. It can accept and nurture foreigners looking to escape Europe and North America. This will lead to a divide that has not happened before. Before, it was mostly Germans or Brazilians who were looking to escape totalitarian rule. They would often move to the countryside and not be very industrious. Now, the more motivated and networked foreigners are in a position to acquire all of the best lawyers, connections, businesses, grocer, real estate, etc. and their wealth will explode beyond the locals who will become very restless. Crime will explode. OR:
- Foreigners get restless with the corruption and their inefficiencies cause them to leave, just like they end of leaving other LATAM places like Colombia, Costa Rica, or Mexico. This will ensure Paraguay’s poverty and backward practices will continue onward and there will be a shrinking catalyst that can turn the country around.
Natives
From the perspective of an Open Door Consultancy client, Paraguay offered a unique advantage throughout South America, well, Latin America for that matter; that was the local indigenous populations hadn’t seemingly shown any discontent towards those of Spanish descent, European or North American origin or Asians for that matter. There are many revolts, protests, statue attacks, biases in areas such as Peru, Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Mexico and elsewhere. Now…there may be an in-group and out-group mentality beginning.
The German Club is 20 dollars…if you’re Paraguayan. If you’re not, expect to pay $50.00 oh and just like 90% of rentals, expected to pay 4-6 months in advance
GNB offers great credit card benefits–but you must be Paraguayan.
Even if a bank can earn 10X the amount off one foreigner, they’ll still reject him over paperwork.
The Paraguayans, or rather Guarani people, being very welcoming and friendly people were the unique exception to this rule. However, there are already developments that this is changing
- There is an immediate proclivity to rip off a foreigner
- I know of someone who could not receive any reply from real estate agents since he was a foreigner (either by his name or poor Spanish)
- Every interaction is a potential scam; every single one. Bribery, in public.
- Being paid to stop harassing, complaining or bothering is a job in some sense. People figure out they can be an uncivil annoyance long enough to the right people to be paid to go away–which lasts for a little while until someone gets hungry again.
- The wealth gap is growing and growing; everyone who can afford these new buildings are almost entirely NOT Paraguayan. Likewise, many expensive grocery stores are populated with those who look of German-descent as opposed to those who look like from the country-side
Having said this, many of the new foreign arrivals are very religious and are more focused on preserving their way of life in their immediate surroundings than networking and innovating to a great extent. In other words, the productive changes may not come soon. If this is the case, you’ll be relying on Paraguayans to suddenly do what they’ve never done before, develop their country
I should say that some disagree that this divide will amount to any chaos; but the divide is certainly very real. Something to think about as times get tough globally.
A man has had his car ruined without any care in the world upon import and their boxes heavily looted for valuables; the information on the import had it a wrong type of automobile and was delayed from being released for 2 months due to illogical paperwork and mistakes
All Well-Informed Expats are At Least Noting The Changes
While I cannot speak to great lengths on the changes on the culture of the country–I have heard numerous times of people noting very “lefty”-leaning people coming to Paraguay and seeking to flood their Californian way of life in old ‘Wild Wild South’ Paraguay. The locals, not too excited about anything but beer, tereré and football, aren’t objecting (with some blind to the risks of foreigners bringing treasonous ideologies); naturally, the foreigners feeling like they’ve escaped the madness of collectivistic dogma are not happy seeing the country become infiltrated.
They have also noticed that some unlikely newcomers are showing up; from Islamic countries and African countries (I can attest to this as I said). There is a Paraguayan grift happening now, everybody is showing up due to its easy residency and relatively affordable cost of living (notwithstanding the scams). The country is becoming a multicultural quagmire like Canada, the USA or UK and fast.
A meeting with the OECD (the global taxation cartel) has also taken place which, in line with my previous statement of the city coming low on funds, higher taxes are in the works–another blow that foreigners have their eye on.
Closing
So… pretty bleak… pretty frustrating. But, the upside is that Paraguay is still uniquely interesting for many things and I still believe it’s one of the best “Plan B” residencies that you can have.
The main motivation of writing this was less to shit on the country, as I said before there’s lots to love of the place and I help people acquire residency in the country for many reasons! However, this is a thorough, perhaps overly harsh post highlighting the downsides and realities of Paraguay before one should fully consider it long-term or worse yet, buy into empty promises.
The main point of this was not to express my frustrations (although make no mistake, I am certainly doing this) but to mainly squash and address the notion that Paraguay is primed to become a fantastic, prosperous nation in the heart of South America. It simply does not have the cognitive prowess, the motivation, the good habits, the safety, the infrastructure, the sustainability, the financial soundness, the laws nor culture to make it into anything remotely close to a stable, functioning nation. I’m no genius for noticing this, but there is a lack of awareness of this place and I suspect many feel as though it has a real chance to become something fantastic, as I once did.
The foreigners who are drawn to the immediate benefits of the country I believe are now beginning to figure out that this place is one that not only does not want to improve itself, but one nearly eager in continuing their path of dysfunction, corruption, crime and lately, uncontrolled immigration. Paraguay won’t be getting my Plan A promotion I’m afraid.
Paraguay is as 3rd world as it gets, and while there are benefits of this, namely immediately benefits of freedom, the long-term future of Paraguay is unfortunately bad in my estimation.
#StayOnTheBall
