Ezequiel Burgo
06/26/2021 11:09 PM
Clarín.com
Economy
Updated 06/26/2021 11:09 PM
On March 23, 1954
Juan Domingo Perón
spoke at the
Teatro Colón
.
He gave a speech before the general secretaries of the unions grouped in the
General Confederation of Labor
.
There were also the representatives of production, industry and commerce (the
General Economic Confederation
).
"Each union has the salary according to the performance of that activity,"
said Perón.
"Companies cannot be made to increase beyond their possibilities, it would mean bankruptcy."
The two-year wage freeze expired and collective bargaining was resumed.
"They were
harsh
and even
violent,
" historian Pablo Gerchunoff recalled the other day on Twitter.
"In those days of 1954,
vandorismo was
born
as a conception of the role of the labor movement in its relationship with Perón."
Perón at that time was looking for
dollars
. A few months ago he had approved a new regime of benefits for foreign capital and had received the president of
the World Bank
, Eugene Black, to negotiate the entry of Argentina to the Bretton Woods institutions, including the
IMF
.
Returning to the income-cost question, there is evidence in
economic theory
that if wages persistently and imperatively beat prices, inflationary pressure increases. Thus, for example, the current
Central Bank
maintains it
. In the article "On the determinants of inflation in Argentina" published on January 12 in its Central de Ideas blog, the monetary authority argues in favor of the idea that inflation in Argentina is a phenomenon as a result "of a conflict over income distribution ”. The bank points out "the importance of designing agreements that allow containing the potential
" distributive conflict "and coordinating expectations
, in order to induce a path of prices and wages compatible with stability".
The appeal of
Perón
and the
Central Bank
would seem to go against the objective of stabilizing the inflation rate this year, which, it is expected, would hit a jump of at least 10 percentage points. The CGT proposed to the Government that the joint ventures that closed below 40% must be reopened. Martín Guzmán had set a goal of 29%.
In a model developed by economists Roberto Frenkel and Lorenzo Sigault Graviña, the rise in prices in the Argentine economy responds to several factors, the main ones being
inertia
, the
dollar
and ...
wages
. Ceteris paribus (constant changes in relative prices and monetary aggregates), the drivers of inflation are somehow
60% wages and 40% dollars.
It could be said that taking the words of Perón,
Kirchnerism
introduced the germ of inflation in the last decades in Argentina. The fact is that the country came out of convertibility with low inflation - with the exception of 40.9% in 2002 as a result of the devaluation. In 2003 there were 3.7% and 6.1% in 2004. With twin surpluses, one of the reasons that explained the increase in prices was that Néstor Kirchner inaugurated an era and a practice that would later be perpetuated:
reopening parities and giving increases above inflation
.
The problem is that when you start with such a dynamic, in a context like the one in which the product was
below its potential
, it is difficult to put it aside because the economy
recovered
its previous level but the demands of a conflictive society persist. It is like with taxes: they are put in emergencies and they are never taken away.
Once the contracts incorporate higher expectations, inflation does not stop and it is costly to return.
"The increases that may occur in the future must always be without influencing prices, because otherwise we would not have reached an equilibrium or a solution but we would have unbalanced the current panorama and created a
new problem for the future,
"
Perón
closed
in the Columbus.
