Alcadio Oña
09/18/2021 11:37 AM
Clarín.com
Economy
Updated 09/18/2021 11:37 AM
It is quite common that even the best sustained versions have gray areas and advise taking certain precautions, as happens with one that still circulates underground and that, if it were to surface,
would introduce noise and sow speculation
of the most diverse colors.
Planted the preamble, the version continues: a couple of weeks ago,
Martín Redrado and officials of the Monetary Fund
met in the United States to talk, predictably, about the state of the Argentine economy and the scope that the long-delayed agreement with the government could acquire by Alberto Fernández when we have the information. It would be better to say that they spoke again,
in reserve and without any commitment,
this time taking advantage of the fact that the former president of the Central Bank was in the US for work reasons.
It jumps out without the need for clarification that the meeting occurred before the PASO kick-off left Kirchnerism groggy and it is worth clarifying, on the other hand, that becoming Minister of Economy is still a very eventual eventuality.
Although it is part of the financial jubilee that, combining the same news, rises and falls the price of stocks and bonds of debt.
Another precision:
Redrado has subordinated his entry into the government to a political agreement between the ruling party and the opposition
on a half dozen central axes, something that those who have tested him already know and that would never happen before the legislative elections of November 14.
Now, two data for the part of the story that directly touches the interests of the Fund. One of them puts at the head of the body and not of the Government the condition that
the agreement be validated by a law voted by Congress,
including, of course, the Senate chaired by Cristina Kirchner. The second proposes that the formal and definitive negotiations start only when the Casa Rosada has
a “credible and solid” plan
ready
to be analyzed in Washington, that is, the Argentines would move the first pieces and they would play as premises.
Without completely avoiding their own guilt, which by the way has not been few or light, it seems clear that the objective behind the conditionalities passes through the intention of being left out of internal and power disputes or of being used as a political instrument. It is similar to saying something that the Argentines of the game want to be believed here: that the plan was put by us and not by them, although the end is not necessarily that and it should not be.
Not by pure chance, then, the always bad word IMF appears in the midst of the crisis that, in the eyes of the whole world, confronts nothing less than the vice president with the president and is also attached to the name of
Martín Guzmán,
the minister Cristina wants to kick out for a long time even if she says she doesn't want to kick him out.
Now, to distance herself from any financial shock that involves her.
Things of the same world,
Cristina acts and acts
as if she had neither art nor part in the appointment of Guzmán.
More precisely, with the fact that the minister was recommended by
Joseph Stiglitz,
the Nobel laureate in economics whom she praises, follows and admires because she considers him a man of progressive ideas.
Put in his own way, this Guzmán belongs to Fernández.
And in truth, much of the minister's work has the President behind him, starting with the 2021 fiscal adjustment that aims to clear the way to an agreement with the IMF.
It has already meant a
real slash of $ 870,000 million between January and July
, charged above all to the retirement account, social allowances, transfers to provinces and public salaries.
The movement started from the same moment that Kirchnerism landed in La Rosada, with the Emergency Law that stopped pension mobility that tied assets to inflation, increased withholdings and created a 30% tax on the purchase of dollars officers.
In case it was not noticed, we are talking about decisions that were made in view of the vice president, with the express participation of the vice president, such as the Emergency Law that passed through the Senate, and without her whining or setting up any batifondo.
Furthermore, there
was a huge silver package managed outside the budget,
audited by Cristina and, definitely, a privilege dedicated to her chief economist, the governor of Buenos Aires.
It was anyway a useless operation: under the weight of poverty and lack of work,
Kirchnerism lost badly where it should have won super well, but, yes, not a single reproach for Axel Kicillof.
It is inevitable, in the end, to associate Vice's furious reaction with the blow that PASO has hit on her personal goals and needs.
All evident, thus presenting the move on behalf of the postponed sectors, that if that is why, they were very postponed when she took office and they have remained very postponed or even more postponed.
Rarity not so rare coming from who it comes from, Cristina left a complete repertoire of complaints in the very long bill that happened to Alberto Fernández, that is, who is where he is by his decision.
Also notable is Fernández's stoicism, who endured the 19 work meetings that they both shared this year in Olivos, which means two-odd per month on average so that he would not do anything that she asked him to do.
Everything, according to Cristina's story.
Apart from reproaches, bill passes, irresponsibility and various disabilities, a critical economic and social situation tells where we are today and also tells us that we are not all in the same place.
INDEC data say that since this version of Kirchnerism came to power,
inflation has accumulated 80%
.
That is, 15 percentage points more than the rise in the registered private salary, blank and among the best in the market, if at this point it can be called better.
Against the unregistered salary, in black and always unstable, the difference sings 22 points.
Everywhere you look, an enormity in just 18 months.
Similarly, private calculations reveal that between the first quarter of 2018 and the first of 2021, the drop in purchasing power of 40% of salaried employees who earn the least reaches 27%.
The account says 19% loss for the 20% who earn the most.
In other words, from very bad to bad but always bad.
Also from private sources, we now have that black employment, the most vulnerable and most exposed to crises, fell 44.7% in the second quarter of 2020 from the endless quarantine compared to the first.
Today the downturn has been reduced to the still considerable 11.9%.
This is called living on the hops and without a net.
It is clear that if we talk about adjustment only in three paragraphs we have plenty.
The point is that it
will be inevitable to continue talking about adjustment,
as is the case with some data that are handled in the negotiations with the IMF.
Among them,
reducing the deficit to zero in four years;
According to today's figures, an ax of US $ 16,000 million that more than triples the net reserves of the Central Bank.
At least as hard, another chapter proposes
reducing the gap between the official exchange rate and the financial ones to 40%
.
That is, to halve a difference that today is 80%.
One more:
hitting the subsidies
and, above all, the energy that grow at 100%, that is, twice the uncontrolled inflation.
By the way, a paragraph from Cristina's rosary: “I also pointed out that I believed that a wrong fiscal adjustment policy was being carried out that was having a negative impact on economic activity and, therefore, on society as a whole (…) .
I did not say it once, I got tired of saying it and not only to the President of the Nation ”.
Paratrooper question: which government is the vice president part of?
Look also
Salaries, spending and dollars: What if the President listens to Cristina Kirchner?
How far should the new IFE go to maintain the purchasing power it had in 2020
