Cash-strapped Argentine town holds raffle to see who will be paid

July 23, 2012 By 7 Comments

Just when you thought you had seen it all.

The broke Argentine town of Bialet Masse has held a raffle to determine which of the town’s 92 employees would receive their paychecks. A lucky 23 were selected to receive their full paychecks.
Coming soon to a town near you?

A raffle will determine which civil servants in a small Argentine town will receive their pay first, due to insufficient funds, its mayor has announced.
“We will draw lots to decide the [order] of payment,” said mayor of Bialet Masse, Gustavo Pueyo, in a broadcast from Buenos Aires private radio station Radio Mitre.

Pueyo said the raffle was approved by national mayoral authorities and the first draw took place on Friday, with 23 of the town’s 92 employees receiving their pay. A second raffle is slated for Monday, AFP reported.
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Comments

  1. Avatar of AGXIIK AGXIIK says:
    July 24, 2012 at 12:36 AM

    San Bernardino, Compton, Stockton and Mammoth Lakes.  All in  California.  They get to play the new game. Paycheck roulette.  Coming to a town near you.

  2. Avatar of Argyrion Argyrion says:
    July 24, 2012 at 1:34 AM

    Do the people get to do the same with their bills and taxes???

    Skip one for the other? 

    Or maybe you just don’t go to work those days you don’t get paid, extra time off.

    Maybe it can be done with roads, one doesn’t get filled, police calls – murderer gets away, ambulance – one heart attack person dies.  Let put everything as a commodity. 

    This game is fun!!!  (sarcasm)

  3. Avatar of reflector reflector says:
    July 24, 2012 at 1:46 AM

    this is insanity.

    governments and government managers should have very basic money management skills.

    if you can’t afford to pay people, then lay people off, or cut salaries, or raise revenue.
    don’t just sit there and pretend nothing’s wrong until you can’t pay what you owe.
    there’s no more surefire way to get people to lose confidence than not being able to handle your basic financial affairs.

    and if you do find yourself in that unthinkable situation where you can’t pay employees, instead of paying 25% of employees in full and everyone else gets nothing, just pay everyone 25%, so at least everyone can eat.

    the quacks that came up with this lottery “solution” need to be thrown out on their asses.

  4. Avatar of PatFields PatFields says:
    July 24, 2012 at 6:36 AM

    The psychology of subservience is such a strange phenomenon. This town should simply organize the simple facilities to mint its own coinage. Liberty and prosperity are in truth only an affirmative realization of what actually exists and what is imaginary.

  5. Avatar of durentu durentu says:
    July 24, 2012 at 7:25 AM

    de la boetie was right on regardless of living in the 16TH century. Even when the government proves that they cannot do things correctly, the people STILL have faith in their government. why? indifference and habit.

    “The fundamental political question is why do people obey a government. The answer is that they tend to enslave themselves, to let themselves be governed by tyrants. Freedom from servitude comes not from violent action, but from the refusal to serve. Tyrants fall when the people withdraw their support” – the politics of obedience
    “Thus custom becomes the first reason for voluntary servitude. Men are like handsome race horses who first bite the bit and later like it, and rearing under the saddle a while soon learn to enjoy displaying their harness and prance proudly beneath their trappings” – politics of obedience
  6. Avatar of PowerBall PowerBall says:
    July 24, 2012 at 9:02 AM

    Scranton, PA recently lowered public workers pay to the minimum wage of $7.25 / hour.  It appears they are now going back to full pay but it makes you wonder if this could start happening on a more frequent basis as cash strapped cities teeter on bankruptcy. 

    http://www.npr.org/2012/07/07/156416876/scrantons-public-workers-pay-cut-to-minimum-wage

  7. Avatar of Ed_B Ed_B says:
    July 25, 2012 at 2:34 AM

    Don’t know about Argentina but in the US a good start would be to prevent government employees from padding their pensions by working ungodly amounts of overtime for their last couple of years.  Some who have done this have ended up making more in retirement than they made in straight time before retiring.  This is abusing the system AND their fellow citizens and needs to stop before the public pension system is utterly destroyed.

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