From Argentina with a hyperinflation of 17,000% to a world power thanks to the “giant” Milei and his team, which is “the best in history”, could be the summary of the speech that the President has been repeating with minor variations since December of last year. Regardless of whether he is in front of Congress, in Davos, in the United States, or as this Wednesday before the elegantly dressed operators of the Stock Exchange, Milei always chooses to read his notes on liberal economics and bore with bad jokes of the occasion. In the middle of an economic storm, it is paradoxical that he has chosen to speak on the stock exchange just when the shares have fallen along with the debt bonds and the parallel dollars cannot find a ceiling.
In order to avoid mentioning that 55% of the population is submerged in poverty, the President explained why the fictional character from the El Zorro series would be “anarcho-capitalist,” he affirmed that there is a bank with coup intentions (without saying which one), he again cited liberal and Austrian economists, and he blamed the rise in country risk on “the fiscal degenerates” (in reference to the Peronist, radical and other deputies who voted for a tiny increase in pensions at the beginning of June). Milei does not want to see that his program of an almost fixed official dollar with inflation above 4% was put in check by the large agro-exporters and the IMF, causing a financial crisis that pressures the government towards a new devaluation.
The President, dressed in an “economist suit” (which is quite big for him), accused his colleagues of being “serial blunderers” for not anticipating the fall in inflation, the growth in production and the recovery of wages and pensions. It is not that the analysts at the consulting firms have become communists or are inept, it is just that having to defend a management that is in crisis can lead to trying to sustain such falsehoods over and over again. The data are overwhelming: in May, industry fell by 14.8% (year-on-year) and construction by 32.6% (year-on-year), according to Indec, and the fall in cement shipments in June of 32.8% (year-on-year) in June, according to the Portland Cement Manufacturers Association, indicate that the collapse continues.
At one point in his diatribes he tried to shift the blame elsewhere, but only managed to be more bizarre. He claimed that the fall in reserves at the Central Bank was due to the cold wave (hiding the payments of foreign debt), that there was no social crisis but inventions to attack the fight against corruption that Pettovello would be leading (no joke) and that if production had not yet taken a leap it was because companies had overstocked (when for years they have been dragging along an operation well below their installed capacity).
As for the next phases of his plan, the President made it clear that they intend to lift the exchange rate restriction when inflation is less than 2% or ceases to exist (reaches 0%). This objective, with current policies, implies reducing production to its minimum level, which would multiply the hundreds of thousands of layoffs that have already occurred in recent months. Although we have already seen Milei dressed as a superhero, he is neither a “giant” nor Diego de la Vega riding a steed; he is a neoliberal who is tying the fate of millions of working families to his obsession with economic orthodoxy. Meanwhile, the unions only pose indignantly and let the attacks on the great majority pass, when it is increasingly urgent to overthrow the government’s adjustment.
Source: www.laizquierdadiario.com
