The Argentine Association of Translators and Interpreters (AATI) has revoked the membership of three professionals ? Aurora Matilde Humarán, Gabriela Mejías and José Luis Villanueva Senchuk ? for the simple reason that they are founding members of the International Association of Professional Translators and Interpreters (IAPTI).

Any true translator must certainly feel sick at his or her stomach to hear translation being spoken of as a commodity.

Who can forget that boss who said I should do the translations "quickly, however it comes out" (as if the response to a divorce suit could be done "quickly" or as if you could pull a tooth "however it comes out").

Those agencies started up their businesses in Argentina to fill their pockets with money by exploiting translators. They are not interested in anybody's education, let alone our profession. If tomorrow selling iPods or clothing for "floggers" were to prove more profitable, they would stop thinking about Collins, Trados or ATA conferences in a heartbeat.

Globalization is a truly one-sided affair: It serves the interests of the sports shoe manufacturer, who sells its products at the highest of international prices over those of the exploited workers of Asia who are paid in humble bowls of rice... And it serves those too of exploitative translation wholesalers over those of translators by knocking the bottom out of the market. Once upon a time, there was a foreign exchange situation in Argentina...