Eduardo Paladini
11/01/2020 4:39 PM
Clarín.com
Politics
Updated 11/01/2020 4:39 PM
The respite between July and August was just that, a respite.
The
economic expectations
deteriorated again in September and October and with this last fall, reached a
new "record"
: since September 2014, the
pessimism
of people about the future was not so deep.
The data, key for some analysts, appears in the latest study by the
Management & Fit
consultancy
.
This is a
national survey
of
2,200 cases
surveyed between October 17 and 21, with a +/- 2.1% margin of error.
"How do you think the country's economic situation will be in the coming months?"
asked the firm led by
Mariel Fornoni specifically
.
More than 60%
of the answers were
negative
: 19.8% chose the "worse" variant and 40.5%, "much worse".
In contrast, 23.3% ranged between "better" (11.4%) and "much better" (11.9%).
11.4% stopped in the middle ("equal").
When the results are detailed by
gender, age and economic level
, the most skeptical are men (61.7%), those under 40 (61.6%) and, above all, the upper class (67.3% ).
But beyond this qualitative analysis of the present, what is striking is the general view compared to the past.
The numbers start in January 2014, when pessimism was even higher than today.
In September of that year, an improvement began which, with fluctuations,
was maintained until the beginning of 2018
.
In other words, during the entire second term of Cristina Kirchner and the first two years of Mauricio Macri.
A few months
after the mid-term legislatures of
the Cambiemos administration, the deterioration of the economy and the sharp drop in expectations would begin.
It was a break for the management of Cambiemos and had its own peak two years ago, when 60% saw a future between "worse" and "much worse".
The 2019 electoral process caused expectations to improve a bit, despite the fact that the hard data of the economy continued to decline.
The inauguration of Alberto Fernández brought another measure of optimism and the negative responses touched
a floor of 40 points at the beginning of this year
.
From there, but above all due to the effects of the pandemic, the outlook was generally pessimistic.
Nicolás Dujovne when he assumed as Minister of Economy of Mauricio Macri, at the beginning of 2017. After a year the problems would begin.
AFP photo.
The lawyer
Juan Pablo Hedo
, from
M&F
, analyzes the latest data as follows: "The pessimism about the economic situation in Argentina has escalated rapidly in recent months,
coinciding with the application of different isolation measures
. For the first time since the end of 2014, expectations about the future of the economy exceed 60% negative opinion; a value that is almost reached also during the last months of 2018. With one difference: the negative retrospective perception of the current economy in relation to the last few months exceeds 67 percentage points. That is,
67.1% believe that the current economic situation is worse or much worse
than a few months ago ".
The analyst adds more data from the study: "
For 39.4%
of those surveyed,
the economic problems are the main ones in the country
: inflation, poverty and unemployment. Seen from the 'health-economy' dilemma, since August 2020 approximately 57 % are more concerned about the economic consequences of the pandemic than about being infected by the coronavirus virus. "
For other specialists, one of the keys to regenerating optimism is "to show a way out, a program, and that this materializes."
They also
speak of the importance of recreating expectations
in "common people, so that they spend what they have and boost consumption, for example", but also "you have to recreate them in those who have to invest millions of dollars."
A political curiosity: part of the idea of a sector of the Government to suspend the PASO next year is because they believe that the economy will improve and that could increase the chances of the ruling party in the election.
A wide sector of society, however, has a different opinion.
At least for now