This Monday Javier Miley He has been in the Government for six months. Many balances can be made, starting with a “political management” so disastrous and plagued by scandals that the most diverse analysts and even the media propagandists of Freedom Advances.
But mercy He is, as he has been saying for years, an economist specialized in growth “with and without money.” There too, in his metier, the supposed “libertarian lion” has been failing. In short, it only confirms that He is nothing more than that “cuddly kitten of economic power” how well he characterized Myriam Bregman in the presidential debate of the 2023 campaign. Here we show you six aspects of the economic “balance” of this first section of the Liberian administration, with the “crack” Toto Caputo to the head.
Inflation
The accumulated of the first six months gives a 109,6 %. mercy He inaugurated his administration with a phenomenal devaluation of the peso (118%) that skyrocketed the prices of goods and services exponentially (thanks to the deregulatory DNU 70, prepaid bills and fuels spiked). December’s 25.5% proves it. And although in the following months the price increase was less intense, the accumulated figure in half a year indicates that The official promise to “slam down” inflation was a lie.
It is worth saying that if the Consumer Price Index (CPI) for May, which will be known in these days, is around 5% (as already anticipated Caputo), it is very likely that it will stay there and even grow again in the following months. The Government has plans to more increases in electricity, gas and transportation rateswhich always impact the prices as a whole.
Wages
mercy He came to power promising millions of workers not to cause any more problems than those already caused by his predecessors. But in the fall in wages It is evident that he lied blatantly. According to himself Indecbetween December and March salaries lost against inflation (except in February, where income from the formal private sector barely beat it by 0.01%).
If you look at the calculations of the Cifra-CTA Research and Training Centerbetween December and April The average registered salary lost 14.9% of purchasing power. But even more he lost the Minimum salary, vital and movil (which is used as a reference to calculate, for example, social benefits), which between November and May plummeted 28.8% according to Cipher.
On this point, our Economy section columnist Lucia Ortega gives more details.
Those who boast of knowing about economics and that others are “donkeys” in economics, like the president, prove to be idiots and cynics.
Why the official statement about the supposed “salary recovery” is a lie.
I open a short and forceful thread 👇🧵 https://t.co/4sGqVnCA9u
— Lucía Ortega (@OrtegaLu_) June 10, 2024
Dollar
In these six months the official dollar increased by 154%. He barely assumed, mercy decreed a 118% devaluation of the peso, taking the wholesale dollar from $353 to $800. And it continued to increase at a rate of 2% per month. An “inflation” of the US currency that, on top of that, is higher than the growth in prices in pesos of goods and services. That is why the blow to the purchasing power of salaries is even greater.
However, for the operators and spokespersons of the export sector, the dollar today is “cheap.” In fact, the silobags are still full and the producers of the agro-export complex continue to refuse to please the mercy y Caputo liquidating more grains, which complicates the strengthening of the reserves of the Banco Central.
With the initial effects of the strong devaluation of the official dollar, the exchange gap with the parallels had narrowed from 181% in December to 23%. But that’s history. Today, after several weeks of daily increases, that gap already reaches 44%. The Government refuses for the moment to a new devaluation, but the pressure from its friends in the economic corporations is very strong.
And if we talk about Banco Centralsince it is mercy in the Pink House the so-called international reserves added US$ 8,208 millionreaching a total (gross) of U$S 29,416 million. But in that calculation they count the swap that Argentina maintains so far with China (almost US$ 18,000 million), the reserves of private banks and other income from the BCRA in concept of loans.
If those aggregates are removed, which are not genuine reserves, the thing is very different. The US$1.1 billion but in negative sense. For example, at this time the State is not even in a position to pay the FMI the loan installments you took Mauricio Macri and they refinanced Alberto Fernandez y Cristina Kirchner in times of Martin Guzman. Logically, Even less can he lift the “trap” that limits the free purchase of dollars, something that also mercy had announced as one of his first and “easy” government measures.
Economic activity
The latest data available for Indec They refer to the first quarter of the year. According to these official statistics, Economic activity fell by 5.3% in the first three months (compared to the previous year). But March was worse than January and February, with a drop in 8.4% year-on-year. Surely the second quarter measurements will be equally or worse negative. According to estimates by private consulting firms, the drop in 2024 could reach 4%.
Installed capacity of the industry
A devastating fact about the economic fall refers to how much is actually produced compared to the installed capacity in the industry. In November After the so-called “installed capacity” was around 66 %, a worrying number in itself. But today that index dropped to just over 50%. To make a historical comparison, the decline is greater than that suffered by the industry in 2020in the middle of the covid-19 pandemic.
Decisive or overcome?
Harmfully cutting public spending (especially in pensions, which explain a third of the Government’s “savings”), letting everything increase and flattening the salaries of the population, mercy y Caputo “they achieved” a financial surplus in the first quarter of around 0.2% of GDP. A “drawing” that does not deliberately leave aside the billions of dollars paid in debt interest, which in essence is a variable that always leads to a deficit.
At the general level, the fall in state spending is close to 30% real year-on-year. A percentage driven by the brutal adjustment in social services (retirements, plans, social assistance), where mileist “savings” reached 67% according to a study by Institute of Applied Economics of the Universidad del Este (IEA-UDE).
As well explained Pablo Anino in an article about the inconsistencies of the economic plan, published in this newspaper on Sunday, the Libertarian government had one of its worst weeks in the area where, precisely, “it perceives itself to be strongest.” With falls in the prices of Argentine bonds in dollars and the rise in Country Risk (the one that mercy until a few days ago boasted of lowering it without pause), “the mortgage of eternal debt appears on the near horizon as a big problem”.
Shadow adds that “the political weaknesses exhibited by the ruling party in Congress with the vote for a slight improvement for retirees promoted by the opposition and with the scandals in the Ministry of Inhuman Capital erode the trust of establishment financial”.
This week will be a new litmus test for the aspirations of mercy y Caputo in its war plan against the working population and the popular sectors. When this Wednesday In the Senate, the Bases Law is discussed, it will be done with these indicators as a backdrop. Indicators that, if the official project becomes law, will surely get worse for the benefit of a handful of corporations. That is why it is proposed that Let’s be thousands surrounding Congress in repudiation of this attempted looting of our social wealth.
Source: www.laizquierdadiario.com
