Even before Sergio Massa declared that: "from tomorrow the responsibility to give certainty is Milei's", the crypto dollar reflected the point of view of a part of the financial market.
With the crypto dollar oscillating at $1,150 (the blue had closed at $950 on Friday) and even before future President Javier Milei delivered his speech, the expectation of another upward dollar move dominated the first hours after the release of the runoff data.
The President-elect replied to the minister by overlooking the next 19 days and setting December 10 as the start date of his term.
If there was one postulate that the libertarian leader maintained firmly in the days leading up to the election, it was dollarization, however, in his first speech after the triumph he did not mention the issue.
The President-elect spoke more of freedom, of fulfilling the commitments assumed by the State and of respecting private property than of short-term definitions.
The discussion on the path towards dollarization or a bimonetary scheme is marked by the evolution of two key variables: how many dollars Milei can get abroad to dollarize and how it intends to digest, without causing an explosion of liquidity, the $20 billion that is trapped in Liquidity Bills (Leliqs).
The risk of starting to release the pesos that are in the Leliqs, without an effective demand for pesos by the people, could generate a shift to the dollar, unleashing another jump in inflation that is already traveling to 140% per year.
Milei, an avowed opponent of the peso campaign, faces the challenge of having to provide them to allow the payment of salaries, bonuses and vacations in December. Will you have any alternative but to print them?
Massa tripped the president-elect and last night there was speculation about a meeting between economists from Milei and the president of the Central Bank, Miguel Pesce, to give a frame of reference to the opening of the foreign exchange market on Tuesday.
The dance of names to occupy key positions in the economic area is limited, for now, to former minister Luis "Toto" Caputo (promoted by Mauricio Macri), Emilio Ocampo, virtual president of the Central Bank as of December, the former president of the Central Bank, Federico Sturzenegger, the financier Dario Epstein, Nicolás Cachanosky, author with Ocampo of the book "Dollarization: a solution for Argentina" and Horacio Liendo, who drew up a "bi-monetary" plan for Patricia Bullrich and who in recent days brought it closer to Milei.
Federico Sturzenegger met with Javier Milei for four hours on Friday.
From that moment, a part of the libertarian's entourage bet that he would be the next Minister of Economy, but a few hours later the same people who broke the news began to lower expectations.
The main reason for the meeting was that Sturzenegger, whom Milei calls by the nickname "Colossus," presented him with a set of bills to "eliminate more than 100 laws" that currently favor what they called "the state bureaucracy."
From this package of projects will emerge the bills so that it is "politics" that pays for the part of the adjustment of public spending that Milei wants to design between now and December 10.
Milei had already told Sergio Massa that he should consider the possibility of changes in the initial bill when the minister sent Congress an addendum to compensate the provinces for the changes in the VAT deduction on purchases of the basic basket.
By this addendum, the provinces as a whole would receive 2.9 billion in 2024 to compensate for the VAT deduction by incorporating 25% of the income from the tax on bank debits and credits and 35% of the Country tax into the co-participating mass. Will Milei have anything to say about that compensation?
Regarding Luis Caputo, those close to him insist that his decision is not to hold public office again, based on the fact that his family environment went through difficult times in his previous administration.
However, there are reports that Caputo is in charge of drawing up a financial plan to restore the agreement with the IMF and get the IMF to contribute $15 billion from the IMF and try to get another $000 billion in the market.
About US$ 30,000 million are estimated by Emilio Ocampo as support to think about implementing dollarization.
Without a significant amount of dollars, and Horacio Liendo agrees, dollarization would be unviable.
The President-elect's gamble on dollarization last night would be a signal in the sense that he will first seek to balance the public accounts to avoid deficits and issuance before facing any kind of bimonetary scheme. Of course, the markets, as usual, will be looking to get ahead of themselves.
