Ezequiel Burgo
03/06/2021 23:46
Clarín.com
Economy
Updated 03/06/2021 23:46
- In a few weeks it will be 30 years from 1 to 1, were you sure you were going to stabilize or were you afraid of failing and that everything would fly?
- I was absolutely
convinced
that it would work.
We authorize the legal use of the dollar as currency.
People had actually been using it because they felt it protected them from the devaluation of the austral.
- But a dollar was set ...
- The one-to-one thing is anecdotal.
The question was to introduce a currency with explicit support for dollars, from Central Bank reserves, as the only possible mechanism for issuing that currency.
I believed that in the long run it would end up inspiring confidence.
- Why does 1 peso equal 1 dollar?
- He was born like 10,000 australes to 1, we took out four zeros and that's it.
But if we had gotten three 0's, it would have been 10 to 1 and if we didn't get any 0's, it would have been 10,000 to 1.
- What else were you thinking at the time?
- That the weight at some point would appreciate.
He believed that Argentina was going to register a rapid increase in productivity due to the effect of deregulation and the opening of the economy, possibly there would come a time when the peso would be worth more than the dollar.
This happened in almost all the countries that had currency boards.
And here it could have happened in 1997 when there was so much capital inflow that if the Central Bank instead of transforming all those dollars into pesos 1 to 1, it would have floated.
"Of all those who are in the opposition, Patricia Bullrich is the one with the most guts and the one with the most vocation for leadership"
- Is today the time for a stabilization plan?
- It is time to rebuild a viable monetary system.
The first step of a successful stabilization plan should be to authorize the operation of a free market for the dollar, even if exchange control for commercial transactions such as the one that exists now is maintained for a time.
But for all other transactions it would have to be absolutely free and legal.
With the monetary and fiscal disorganization that we have now, it is impossible to think that a stabilization plan has a chance of success.
A stabilization plan that at the same time enables the growth of the economy requires a complete reorganization of the economy.
But only a government that is convinced of it can move in that direction.
- In that sense, does it coincide with Guzmán's roadmap? Some see him very cautious ...
-
Guzmán is doing the only thing he can do: manage the economy in the midst of a general disorganization
.
It is very conditioned by the electoral calendar.
Until December he was talking about how he was going to manage the official exchange rate through what economists call a passive crawling peg, that is, to maintain the real exchange rate ...
- But...
- But later, in lectures he gave at universities, he ended up saying that he is going to manage the price of the commercial dollar so that it does not increase more than 25% in the year.
I interpret that he warned that with the previous announcement it was very difficult to think of an annual inflation below 50%, when he, in the budget, had projected 29%.
I think that now with this exchange announcement it is likely that inflation will be lower, perhaps it can be around 40% by 2021.
I think that this change in position also influenced, that the increase is consolidating export product prices and then that will help you control the exchange rate.
But this way of managing the economy corresponds to the general disorganization that it has.
Guzmán cannot do very different things than what he is doing.
- Macri had a course, but the dollar exploded, Fernández has no course but in recent months he controlled the dollar, what is worse?
-
Macri failed many things
.
I do not want to go into detail now, but above all he did not put enough emphasis on correcting imbalances that had to be eliminated from the outset.
It was managed without the Minister of the Economy
.
The same for me
we are much worse now than in the Macri government
, because at least at that time there was a course and one could criticize specific measures that were taken, or suggest others.
Here, at this moment, it is impossible to judge specific measures, because since there is no direction, it is not known what type of economic organization the government has in mind.
I am not saying Guzmán, I am saying the government.
"It is likely that inflation will be lower, maybe it can be around 40% for this year"
- Do I have to sign with the Fund?
- If the Government were able to define a clear course, it would easily get more support from the Fund.
But I think that the negotiation with the Fund is not the area in which the course and type of economic reorganization should be defined.
- The minister (Guzmán) said that the IMF is responsible for what happened in Argentina. Do you agree with this statement?
- No. I do
n't think Guzmán thinks that either
, but after the President's speeches in front of the Legislative Assembly and the vice president in front of the Cassation judges, he couldn't say anything else without the risk of contradicting his bosses.
You are going to be in a very uncomfortable position when you have to restart conversations with the Fund.
- Meet President Alberto Fernández and Cristina Kirchner, how do you see that relationship?
-
Who inspires everything that the government is doing is the vice president
.
You can tell just by looking at what Alberto Fernández's views were on all these issues before he was nominated for president.
-Have you talked to the President for a long time?
- Twenty years ago.
He accompanied my candidacy with Beliz in the City.
And he was a candidate for legislator.
Before that he had been Superintendent of Insurance.
I knew Nestor Kirchner well.
Alberto Fernández always accompanied him when he came to talk to me, but he rarely spoke.
- What image do you have of him?
-
He is not a leader or someone who has clear ideas and knows how to put them into practice
.
He abandoned all those ideas that he preached when he was no longer in Cristina's government, which, in my opinion, were generally correct.
Today he proclaims the ideas of Cristina Kirchner, which even very little resembles those of Néstor Kirchner
.
Kicillof changed Cristina's way of thinking about economics.
He re-educated her in an old and totally wrong economic ideology.
- Is there not a contradiction in your approach? He says that the Government has no direction but that Cristina has a clear way of thinking. Does Cristina have a course then or is it that you consider that it is not the correct one?
-
It doesn't have a heading
.
I say that there is a course when you know well where you want to go and policies are straightened in that direction.
There are some examples: they believe that the monetary issue and the monetary order have no influence on inflation;
that all prices in the economy can be managed and that this corresponds to the government and not to companies operating in competing markets;
they believe that the government has to manage all foreign trade;
They believe that the State can better manage companies than the private sector; they believe that it can tax unlimitedly and with highly distorting taxes on the private sector.
That is not a heading.
They are
irrelevant beliefs
, which are not going to lead to any good port.
- How can these episodes that you see about these VIP vaccine scandals or the sentence to Lázaro Báez of corruption affect, do you talk about the perspective that the vice president herself has within the Justice, how does that affect the economy?
- In my opinion
the consequences are going to be political
.
I believe that Guzmán in the best of cases will be able to maintain the climate that is being lived in economic matters with an inflation that does not exceed 40% and with an economy that is going to recover until reaching, in the best of cases, the level it had before the pandemic.
But then it will be stagnant and the country will have been undercapitalized in the real sense because there is no investment and there is no investment climate.
At the moment,
Cristina is the one who imposes her points of view and is even taking on people who answer the bulk of the charges
.
- What do you think of the Economic and Social Council?
- Beliz is a capable person with very good intentions.
This CeyS will try to contribute ideas and point out the direction that Argentina needs.
But based on what they have said, it is intended to have a proposal by 2023. It
may be too late.
- How do you see the opposition? Can Ricardo López Murphy and Martín Lousteau be in the same space?
- Yes perfectly.
There are many individually valuable, capable people.
The two you mention certainly are.
But to get to govern and be able to be successful in government, many pieces need to be articulated and great political leadership is needed.
I'm not saying that
Lousteau
can't do it, and
Lopez Murphy
tried and he was close and I have a great appreciation for him.
But here, for me, it would be very important that the space that was opened with Macri in Together for Change can be formed into a coalition capable of not only being an opposition now in these years, but also preparing to govern well as of 2023. It is fundamental that a leadership appears capable of keeping the different ingredients together, but that is very clear about the course and that is capable of persuading, beginning by persuading those who follow it, but also the entire population.
That was the great merit of Menem.
"I haven't talked to Alberto Fernández for twenty years. He accompanied my candidacy with Beliz in the city. And he was a candidate for legislator."
- Who do you see with that profile?
- Of all those who are in the opposition,
Patricia Bullrich
is the one with the most guts and the one with the most leadership vocation and I would say that she is the one who also has the most experience of all kinds.
But Juntos por el Cambio has many capable people, without a doubt
Rodríguez Larreta and María Eugenia Vidal
, people who have joined with Pichetto who come from Peronism, or radicals with leaders like
Alfredo Cornejo
and
Gerardo Morales
.
- And Macri?
- It seems to me that it would have to act as a kind of protector of space, but allow the role of each one to be defined democratically with a view to 2023.
- One hour of conversation, it shows in state
- Yes, but I stay in bed afterwards.
Without radio or TV, ask for a stop to complaints
"I no longer listen to the radio or watch television,"
says Domingo Cavallo.
When he was Minister of Economy with Carlos Menem, the economist said that in the morning he had breakfast with the radio at the table with Sonia (his wife) and their children.
"I inform myself through online publications
.
"
The interview with
Clarín
was in person on the first floor of its historic offices in Tagle and Libertador.
"Let's open the windows because if not Sonia challenges me
.
"
He does it.
Cavallo then sits down and starts talking.
Nothing will stop him for an hour in which the issues will appear in gush: Menem ("I did not like the coverage that was given to his figure when he died, it was not emphasized in his most positive legacy"), 1 to 1, Martín Guzmán, Alberto Fernández, Cristina Kirchner, Justice and the opposition.
-What would you recommend to the
opposition
?
-
Stop making complaints
.
This judicialization of politics and every time the government makes a decision they go and accuse ...
-Especially in the economy, the future dollar, the debt with the IMF, on one side and the other.
-
The judicialization of politics seems to me as negative as the politicization of justice
.
They are really two
very bad
institutional deformations
for the country.
But another thing the opposition has to do is take advantage of the experience they had in the Macri government and form teams of people who continue to seriously study the problems and prepare to govern well.
“The
Pensar
de Macri
foundation
, as it operated until 2015, was rather an
instrument for the electoral campaign
.
What they have to do now is work seriously to have prepared what they are going to do as a government, that is very important ”
.
Cavallo is a registered trademark of the
Super Minister of Economy
, a figure banished by Kirchnerism but that even Macri tried to avoid.
When the Minister of Economy does well, a murmur comes down from the stands that magnify his figure and overshadows the President.
Cavallo competed with Menem.
-It is said that Macri did not want a new Cavallo.
-That
was a serious mistake
.
Without a doubt, Kirchner's best period was when he had
Lavagna
as Minister of the Economy, then the economy for a few years continued to function well, but because of the boom in soybean growth.
But when Lavagna denounced that we tended to a capitalism of friends, there it began to be noticed that we were going to have problems.
Kirchner believed that he could be his own economy minister.
But what happened with Macri was worse because from the beginning he did not want to have an economy minister and atomized the decision-making power in economic matters.
Alfonsín had had a good economic team, led by
Juan Sourrouille
, a team of capable people.
Alfonsín was failed more by the political team than the economic team.
But to Macri the other way around.
When he empowered
Nicolás Dujovne and Guido Sandleris, it
was to implement a plan that was ultimately done by the Fund.
And for me,
the Fund was wrong from beginning to end, because with the idea that they had to float the peso against the dollar, they fueled the inflationary process
.
Right now
A project.
Write a memoir with special emphasis on highlighting my experience on the dire consequences of the judicialization of politics and the politicization of Justice.
A dream.
To be able to take each of my five youngest grandchildren to know China and Italy.
A memory.
The first steps of my daughter Sonia María next to the Charles River, just arrived in Cambridge to study at Harvard.
A leader.
Angela Merkel.
A hero.
Domingo Faustino Sarmiento.
Food.
The risotto my nona made in San Francisco.
Drink.
A good cabernet wine.
Person.
that Graciela Fernández Meijide admires.
Book.
For Whom the Bell Tolls, by Ernest Hemingway.
A pleasure.
Know new places.
Film.
A man and a woman, by Claude Lelouch.
Serie.
Borgen.
A place.
La Cumbrecita, in the mountains of Córdoba.