There is no way to find good news, or at least encouraging news, in the sea of data that exists within the February price index.
And if what remains then is to search among the discouraging ones, a notable one, loaded with social and political connotations, is the
violent increase in the cost of food.
According to national statistics, there are
9.8% in February;
102.6% annually and no less than 388% since Kirchnerism returned to power
.
If you prefer to focus on the impoverished, neglected Buenos Aires suburbs, we have: 10.9% for February or almost 11% in a single month and 385% against the beginning of 2020.
A couple of samples of the
spill-within-the-spill
jump when you go into the difference between what the cost of food went up versus the 348% increase in the overall index.
Just as impressive, in the first case the gap is 40 round percentage points and 37 in the GBA.
We are talking, if it goes without saying, of
consumption that is most of the time irreplaceable
, of those that weigh heavily on the pockets of low-income families and express, like few others, the
drop in real wages
.
INDEC data shows, precisely, that for those who occupy the lower rung of the social pyramid, food represents
34.5% of spending, up to 36% if you go down to the first basement.
Expression of the difference in income and purchasing power,
the impact is reduced to 15.7% in the upper step of the pyramid
.
And since in both segments the portion that goes to transportation, housing, and services is similar, the excess is called savings capacity or access to ways of life that are certainly uneven.
In a similar vein,
the 25% of households with the greatest resources concentrate their purchases in supermarkets,
that is, in shops where there are plenty of Fair Price plan signs and where, supposedly, prices are lower.
On the other hand,
35% pay more expensively and in cash
in specialized or local businesses, such as bakeries, butchers and greengrocers.
In a train of hammering on the inequalities of the unequal world and always with pure data, we now have that,
measured by the cost of food, the income of 9.2 million informal wage earners, in black, have fallen by 39.5% since 2017.
It is worth insisting that this is half of the country's labor force, workers who lack basic labor and social coverage, who are not unionized but rather the other way around, who are marginalized in a few ways.
According to the same measure of inequality,
for private employees in white the loss goes back to 23% and is around 27% in the public sector.
In both cases, unionized wage earners and therefore covered by parities.
It often happens, with economics and with some of the so-called social sciences, that
numbers tell things better than a few words.
And it also happens that this clarification serves to continue shooting numbers.
That said, what is coming, also from INDEC, says that
40.9% of the 9.2 million informal wage earners are from the Buenos Aires suburbs
.
That is, almost 3.8 million precarious workers, surely in a situation of poverty.
Problems of the territory to which Christianity is strongly committed and allocates resources in quantity, the poverty indicator recorded 39.8% at the beginning of 2019. And as the last record indicated 42%, the result suggests that despite the effort put in by the Government poverty does not subside or worse, it grows.
Something is wrong, in the management of Axel Kicillof.
And the bombastic praise that the governor dedicates to the vice president every time she presents herself with an opportunity does not solve it.
That's another thing.
Hard numbers, again, that
it is not possible to sweep away with plans or with endless speeches
.
And that they survive the rants that promise to create jobs and that exalt the equalizing role of work, that ponder the role of SMEs and speak of sustained economic growth that is hard to find.
Tasks for the Ministry of Social Development managed by Victoria Tolosa Paz, an official who has canceled 80,000 Work plans and who boasts of being there to "take care of the most vulnerable", that is, several million people who are ostensibly neglected.
In the meantime, inflation continues its path
.
Figures for the Basic Food Basket, for subsistence, mark 115% in the last twelve months and 111% in the case of the broader basket that defines poverty.
All clearly played at 100 percent long.
Contributions to the general picture, estimates from consultants who have followed the movement of prices for years warn that
the March index looks to start with 7
and that the food index is around 7.4%.
Then the first quarter of 2023 is marching straight into the 20% zone or 25% zone if it comes to the always steep cost of food.
Just to compare and use the figures to suit each one, January-March 2022 had given 16.1% and the same period of the initial 2020, an incredible 7.8% at this point.
In the path of super inflation K, nothing was missing:
there were maximum, controlled and regulated prices, squeezes, prizes, punishments and diverse and not very clear barters.
Nothing or almost nothing that we don't know and nothing even remotely resembling a plan.
Everything, finally, from the spent, definitively
ineffective Kirchnerist arsenal.
Comment from an economist who knows the cloth: “Something strange is happening with the
parities
.
As if there were moves agreed with certain union bosses, it seems that the idea is to step on the negotiations, not make waves and present the arrangements with the 60% stamp to see if inflation begins to loosen.
Put another way, stepping on parities or manipulating them sounds like
turning wages into an adjustment variable
.
Or to insist on a method that is already used, and is used for all purposes, including retirement, with inflation skyrocketing.
And even when there are protagonists of the Kirchnerist suit, the wave is with Sergio Massa and, more precisely, aims to bank Sergio Massa and his presidential aspirations.
The economist who knows the cloth continues: "Sergio is hit hard by uncontrolled inflation and
he has fewer and fewer bullets left,
but he still has Cristina's endorsement, perhaps because he seems to her to be the best-planted candidate to hold the electoral parade and keep 30% of the electorate.
Or simply because he doesn't have a better one.
It is worth clarifying that it is the look of someone who was close to Massa and distanced himself from Massa.
Other views on the scarcity of alternatives K go on Cristina's capacity-
incapacity
to assemble and build solid and qualified structures, despite her two presidencies and the current vice-presidency.
If you prefer, she despite the 11 years at the top of power plus the time she was number one senator.
Obviously, La Cámpora,
a confused conglomerate, populated by opportunists, which presents itself as heirs,
does not qualify for that function .
Nor is the
Instituto Patria,
famous for its tinsel and tinsel and unknown for its contributions to the political and economic debate.
It's what's at center stage, messy and improvised everywhere.
And among what there is, it is difficult to find where the Government clings to to sustain that "People come first."
Actually, first there is propaganda.