For the working majorities, adjustment. For large corporations, million-dollar profits. The plan of the Milei government and the IMF has clear winners and losers. A report from the “Institute” of Thought and Public Policies (IPYPP) shows that it exposes the brutal transfer of income from the working majorities to concentrated local and foreign groups during the first half of 2024.
In the heat of Caputo’s devaluation last December, the chainsaw and blender of public spending on the university, retirees, state workers, health, children, among others, high rates and price deregulation, large companies of privatized public services, hydrocarbons, banks and finance companies, food and pharmaceutical companies, among others, achieved quintuple your profits.
“Both operating and net results quintupled in the year considering the information corresponding to the first half of 2024 vs. 2023,” highlights the report prepared by Agustina Haimovich, Claudio Lozano, Javier Rameri and Ana Rameri. This is a panel of 26 large firms that operate on the Buenos Aires Stock Exchange, belonging to 11 sectors of activity such as hydrocarbons, energy, food, financial, among the most important.
“Some sectors detached themselves from the panel average. The operating results of the hydrocarbons sector (+709.6%) and the banking sector (+450.6%) stand out. When considering other concepts of profit, the net results were especially increased again in the oil and gas sector (+740%) and the food producing sector was added (+683%)”, the report highlights.
The operating result refers to the profit from the main activity of the economic group, while the net result incorporates the financial profit, participation in companies, the payment of income tax among other concepts. This means that in many cases, companies manage to increase their results thanks to income from financial speculation, obtaining net results that grow more than operating results.
Some companies also differed significantly from the already extraordinary performance of the largest companies listed on the Stock Exchange. The select group has firms such as Agro Millsat the grain store of Perez Compancwhich expanded the operating result by +7,543%, Metrogas it did so by 2,581% and Mirgor of the family Caputo with an increase of 1,097%.
Net profits once again featured the Caputo company with an increase of 2,788%. Other companies that They multiplied their final profits by 20 in just one year were: Telecom (+2,080%) that took advantage of the deregulation of the prices of all its internet and mobile phone services; Mastellone Brothers increased the volume of its profits by 2,050% despite the fact that in that same period dairy consumption in the country fell by 17.6% (according to the IDAA); Tecpetrol expanded by 1,860.4% and Laboratorio Richmond by 1,325%.
IPYPP’s research focuses on the results of the main companies listed on the Buenos Aires Stock Exchange, therefore it does not exhaust all those who benefit from Milei’s policies. But they undoubtedly allow us to account for the enormous profitability that most of the concentrated sectors had, operating mainly in the financial sector, extractive activities and privatized public service companies, but also in industrial sectors such as food, benefited from the price increase.
In the second half of 2024, with the official dollar depreciating at 2% per month, below inflation, a scheme of macro variables began to be deployed, such as the exchange rate, inflation and interest rates, very conducive to called “financial bicycle” with which the large employers once again multiplied their speculative profits.
While Salaries are still almost 10 points below purchasing power than they had at the end of last year, the recession in economic activity affects employment levels and increases precariousness, the “festival of the markets” is for a few.
While dollar reserves continue at very low levels and problems persist on the external front with the mortgage of the debt, the contradictions worsen that could lead to an abrupt end that big capital, the government and the IMF will seek to unload on the backs of the workers. It is necessary to stop Milei’s adjustment plan and put an end to this looting.
Source: www.laizquierdadiario.com
