A report that reveals who takes the dollars. Editorial of “El Círculo Rojo”, a program from La Izquierda Diario that is broadcast on Thursdays from 10 pm to 12 midnight on Radio Con Vos, 89.9.

  • Almost every day we hear about the dollar crisis, the dollar drama, the lack of dollars, etc. Today the parallel dollar rose again, breaking a new record when it closed around $570. Unquestionably, the question of the dollar —and above all the shortage of dollars— is at the base of the crisis of the Argentine economy.
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  • Multiple interpretations circulate that try to explain the issue as an expression of a phenomenon that goes beyond the economy: that it is a problem linked to a certain mentality of Argentines: “the problem that Argentines have with the dollar”; that it is a cultural, psychological, anthropological question. As if an obsession with the dollar inhabited all of us. This is what economists, analysts or politicians from different perspectives say: if you listen to some of Cristina Kirchner’s own speeches, she even says something like that when she talks about the “bi-monetary economy”.
  • As if the issue of the lack of dollars and the attachment to that currency by an important sector of the population were an individual problem for many people and not basically what it is: an economic problem. Or if you want, political economy.
  • The famous external restriction is at the base of the recurring crisis that Argentina has manifested in the shortage of dollars. This is the result of an economy that has a backward (or unevenly underdeveloped) industry, generally much less developed than in the so-called core countries. And this backward structure brings as a consequence that when the economy expands, the demand for dollars begins to be able to acquire capital goods and incorporate them into industries or companies. These dollars are generated by a sector of the economy (agribusiness), the countryside, at some point those dollars are not enough to maintain the growth rate, to acquire the capital goods that allow the expansion to continue and this contradiction manifests itself in various ways. ways: inflation, recession and sometimes both combined. This is a structural and historical aspect of the Argentine economy that is linked to how the country was designed by the ruling classes with an economy at the same time conditioned by the great foreign powers. So, therein lies a strictly economic basis of the dollar problem.
  • Now, later, there are more conjunctural reasons or immediate economic policy orientation. Last week I spoke in this space about the debt in general and the International Monetary Fund, in particular, as a political mechanism: the business is to keep the country always in debt to impose other conditions. But, well, the dollars go to pay an illegal, illegitimate and “hateful” debt (legal concept).
  • However, there are other mechanisms: a report prepared jointly by the Latin American Faculty of Social Sciences (Flacso) and the Cifra study center (linked to the CTA) concluded that “during the first three years of the Frente de All of them entered foreign currency for 45,537 million dollars for the trade balance of goods. However, “an important factor that prevented the trade surplus from increasing reserves was the drain of foreign currency for the cancellation of private sector debt, since interest payments and financial loans from the private sector accumulated 24,698 million dollars between 2020 and 2022.
  • We are talking about debt taken in the 2015-2022 period and that the Government even asked them to restructure that debt by at least 60% in a context of lack of dollars (since the country was in the process of rediscussing its doubt ), which according to the calculations of Flacso-Cifra, these companies did not do and, despite everything, they obtained the dollars to pay off their debts.
  • And we are talking about groups like Mindlin with Pampa Energía and Transportadora Gas del Sur, the Elsztain Group with IRSA and Cresud, the Clarín Group with Cablevisión and Telecom, the Eurnekián Group with Aeropuertos Argentina 2000 and Compañía General de Combustibles, the Galicia Group with the Bank and Orange Card. Thus the number of companies is 25, but the number of owners is reduced to 20.
  • The conclusion of the document is that: “the high concentration of external indebtedness of the private sector in large companies and economic groups both in the government of Cambiemos and in that of the Frente de Todos, and the magnitude of these maturities in this last period invite us to reflect around the policy deployed in times of high trade surplus and lower disbursements to the International Monetary Fund. In other words, at a period that became crucial to accumulate international reserves to face the debt crisis inherited from the Cambiemos government. Well then, the channeling of the trade surplus towards the cancellation of the debt of the economic groups and the defects of the restructuring of the public debt constituted outstanding components of the reserve crisis that currently limits the possibilities of sustaining economic growth and generating better possibilities to increase the participation of workers in income”.
  • All this while, the authorization to buy dollars from any small saver or even workers with a certain saving capacity was reduced to a minimum (200 dollars), and with a lot of restrictions. And, on the other hand, this shortage causes is one of the causes of inflation (which liquefies the salary), pushes organizations to demand adjustments to pay debt, in short, the consequences fall on the majority.
  • So, it is not a problem that “Argentines and Argentines have with the dollar”, the problem is some Argentines of a certain class.

    • Politics / Dollars / The Red Circle

    Source: www.laizquierdadiario.com



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