Alcadio Oña
02/27/2021 1:20 PM
Clarín.com
Economy
Updated 02/27/2021 1:33 PM
Half hidden in the last National Budget, there is a case that is a strong world rarity and another example of the
Argentine
economic dislocation
: the Government projected the inflation rates of 2020-21-22 and 23 with a "deviation", upwards or towards down
4 percentage points
.
Without delving into developed countries, we have a meter nearby to measure the magnitude of such a self-conceded margin of error: the gap is almost equal to the 4.5% recorded by the annual price index of Brazil;
it passes 3-3.1% in Chile and Mexico and doubles or slightly less than 2 in Peru and 2.2% in Paraguay.
Put more clearly, the
"Argentine deviation" is
equivalent to or far exceeds the records that countries comparable to ours have in a full year.
With the four points incorporated, the inflationary pattern for 2020 was stretched from 32% to 36% and hit the stick at 36.1, which was set by the INDEC statistics.
No success by Minister Martín Guzmán, in the end it is about very high rates, sixth in the world ranking, as occurs with the projection of 29% proposed for 2021 or 33% calculating the "deviation".
The year started with 4% in January and around 3.5% in February;
together they reduce to less than 1.8% per month the ceiling that allows staying in the area of 29% per year.
In addition, we have 5.6% in the wholesale index and 15% in the accumulated since November, that is, a couple of powerful figures that are
indications about future increases
in goods that make up the so-called cost of living and a combo that compromises, even , to the stretched goal of 2021.
Centerpiece of the film, the
basic food basket
that determines the critical poverty line scored 4.6% during the first month of the year and 44% for the accumulated since January 2020. And if we go to products from the same universe, within the consumer price index we will see, still on the rise, an impressive 57.7% per year for meat;
54.3% in vegetables and 81.5% in fruits.
So much number of a serve can overwhelm, and surely overwhelm, but the data and especially if they are from INDEC have the virtue of being concrete and of representing very concrete things without too many disquisitions.
As is the case with the unstoppable escalation in the cost of construction materials, which can speak of a previous relative delay against other prices, reflect the movements of an alternative investment to the dollar and, finally,
postpone again the always alive dream of the house own.
The INDEC statistics sing there 5.9% in January, after the 64.4% annual in 2020 and the 50.6% also annual in 2019, that is, no less than 162% in just two years and a month.
Predictable and announced, construction began to loosen.
There is a lot more to this newsletter, but the first batch already tells how bad the pockets of the population are having and hits, flat, the basic needs and aspirations of
those who occupy the lower rungs in the income pyramid.
Nothing egalitarian or politically free, by the way.
And how and with what tools does the Government face an economic-social panorama that, far from improving, tends to worsen, which hits it where it hurts the most and when, with a long year in the Casa Rosada, the inheritance argument is frayed macrista?
He does not face it in the best way, precisely: he
stumbles,
without a plan or imagination or a clear leader, disorderly and to top it
all the time crossed by inmates.
Of this confused world is that Guzmán often looks
more like a commentator than the head of Economy that he formally is
and that, even so, he has very ugly in his environment.
It was enough that without further details he assimilated inflation to a macroeconomic phenomenon for, behind the scenes, Christianity questioned him that he had not put the so
-
called
price
makers
at the center of the blame
, that is, that he omitted his straightforward interpretation of the phenomenon. .
Two more expressions of the same lack of control.
One refers to the hundreds of activists from social organizations, who respond to officials outside the Economy and who left, and would leave again, to monitor prices and stocks in supermarkets.
The following is the
threat of closures
that an official close to Governor Kicillof, who is also a Cristinista, gobbled up a group of leading food companies.
Another battlefront open to several anchor points in the adjustment of fiscal accounts.
A focus is placed on
electricity and gas rates:
pressed by subsidies that last year grew 92% and amounted to $ 323,000 million, the minister pushes an increase that oscillates between 30 and 40%;
Cristina Kirchner says less than 10%.
Coupled with a dispute that in fact involves the President himself, the noise that spreads the magnitude of the
scythe
that will fall on the $ 500,000 million that, in 2020, went to the Covid social and labor emergency plans: Guzmán erased them from the Budget of 2021.
And if something is missing from such a mess, it is that
Amado Boudou is lowering the line on the hostile wing of Christianity.
He is not lacking, actually: that has happened for a long time, although it is known and he knows that Alberto Fernández does not like him well.
An association jumps sung later, between what happens with economic management and something that burns today in other areas of power.
Question: where do disorder, comings and goings and unpredictability also reign;
Where is the lack of a plan and a director who actually conducts instead of an uncoordinated orchestra, when not dislocated, and where does a worn-out story sound less and less useful to cover up reality?
Answer: obviously, all that happens with the management of the pandemic.
And worse, if we talk about the
scandalous, dark and widespread vip vaccinations.
The complete package explains, at least in part, that in the 2020 of the pandemic, the Argentine GDP would have been the one that fell the most in the region, after Peru, another nest of serial bandits: 10 and 11%, respectively.
The short list continues with 8.5% from Mexico, 6.9 and Colombia and 6% from Chile.
In Brazil, the downturn was reduced to 4%.
Measured per inhabitant, the Gross Product fell back to the level of the mid-1970s, 50 years ago
.
Investment is in a tailspin, at the lowest point in the INDEC series that began in 2004. Real wages have plummeted a remarkable 20% in the last three years and private consumption, its direct relative and the engine of the Argentine economy , declined to 62% of GDP, 8 percentage points less than 70% in very close years.
From this subsoil that is
pure decadence and pure backwardness,
which is more social inequality and poverty, it will be measured how many votes the 6-7% rebound projected by the consultancies is worth and, better, if people perceive it.
Or how much it is worth against inflation that the same consultants estimate between 40 and 45%.
Or what about the two million jobs that are still lost, of the 3.2 million that were lost in the second quarter of 2020.
For the moment,
the ruling party has already decided to play hard with tightening and price controls,
plus some wage or income increases by decree.
Plus the old recourse of turning back the dollar clock and all reinforced on the eve of the elections.
There is, however, a decisive variable that is on the loose for now.
It is in the
capacity, volume and speed of vaccination
that arises from the handling of the crisis, for now visibly limited and subject to disruptions in the government's management.
Look also
The G20 analyzes injecting money into the International Monetary Fund, a measure that would impact Argentina
Janet Yellen and a request that could help Argentina: a global issue for the IMF to distribute more dollars