Argentina is going through a serious economic crisis.
It is chronic, it precedes the current government and also the previous one.
The economy is the evil that overwhelms Argentines, accustomed to experiencing short periods of prosperity followed by painful falls.
Overcoming the loop requires major political agreements, where all sectors are willing to do their part.
The president, Alberto Fernández, has squandered all his political capital in little more than two years in fighting with his vice president, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner.
The crisis worsens.
The peso loses value every day and inflation is skyrocketing.
Forecasts are dangerously close to a three-digit rise in the CPI for December.
A few days ago, the Minister of Economy, Martín Guzmán, architect of the agreement with the International Monetary Fund, resigned from his post.
He felt his hands tied and fed up with the attacks he received almost daily from Kirchnerism.
But something has changed since then.
The seriousness of the crisis has activated doses of pragmatism that had not been seen until now in the leadership of power in Argentina.
Fernández and Kirchner have parked mutual attacks and public humiliations.
The political truce was translated into gestures that try to calm the markets.
The new Economy Minister, Silvina Batakis, promised the IMF to meet the goals agreed upon by Guzmán in January.
That includes adjusting the State and reducing energy subsidies to control the fiscal deficit.
The Government decided to freeze the number of public employees and tie the Administration's budget items to its genuine resources.
The markets heard what they wanted to hear.
For much less, Guzmán had to leave his post.
Kirchner, and Kirchnerism, did not react to such a dose of economic orthodoxy.
They may have taken note of the nearness of the abyss.
During the new minister's first week, prices soared, the peso collapsed against the dollar in the unofficial market, and investors fled from peso debt bonds.
It was a storm that called for a political agreement.
Batakis represents that agreement.
The staging of the announcements was no accident: ministers linked to production and even the president of the Central Bank, Miguel Pesce, sat by his side at the Economy headquarters.
It was the photo of a studied entente.
A general reform of the Cabinet of Ministers was left for another time, as was to be expected when it comes to regaining the confidence of both citizens and investors.
Fernández and Kirchner do not agree on this point;
it is so much the mutual resentment that they have left for later the construction of a list of candidates by consensus.
But they have taken, at least, a first step to reduce the internal tensions that were weighing down the president's management and eating away at the spirit in the street.
If Argentina does not fix the policy, little can be done to improve the economy.