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Argentina February Congressional inflation index more that double the official rate

Friday, March 15th 2013 - 06:54 UTC
Full article 28 comments

In contrast with the 0.5% inflation reported by the Argentine government’s controversial stats office, Indec, the index based on private estimates and released by opposition lawmakers climbed to 1.23% with an accumulated 25.27% in the last twelve months. Read full article

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  • Diddles

    Argentina, an economic joke led by imbeciles.

    Mar 15th, 2013 - 07:09 am - Link - Report abuse 0
  • Trunce

    ”the artificial freezing of prices could bring even worse consequences because it is like trying to contain a pressure cooker”

    You don't need to be an economist to work that one out!

    Mar 15th, 2013 - 08:37 am - Link - Report abuse 0
  • reality check

    Not the true figure, no suprise there then.

    Mar 15th, 2013 - 08:44 am - Link - Report abuse 0
  • LEPRecon

    Cristina's 'miracle' economic model is still in action, although the only true miracle is how she's managed to keep the circus going on so long.

    The bubble will burst any moment, and as usual the ordinary Argentines will walk around saying, 'but how? Why? We were told that everything was going so well?'

    Then they'll start blaming the international community rather than look at the true cause of the problems.

    Mar 15th, 2013 - 09:29 am - Link - Report abuse 0
  • Xect

    Another day, another farce in the Argentine world of made up economics.

    It's such a successful model it led to the worlds biggest default and they are on track for a second.

    Learning from their mistakes doesn't seem something the Argentine public/government are keen on.

    Mar 15th, 2013 - 09:42 am - Link - Report abuse 0
  • Anbar

    “”Learning from their mistakes doesn't seem something the Argentine public/government are keen on.“””

    Lying to cover their mistakes does seem something the Argentine government are keen on.

    ¬_¬

    Mar 15th, 2013 - 10:34 am - Link - Report abuse 0
  • Mendoza Canadian

    Translate and read this article... http://www.mdzol.com/nota/453389-en-brasil-dicen-que-cfk-cree-que-argentina-es-suecia/

    Mar 15th, 2013 - 10:58 am - Link - Report abuse 0
  • Anglotino

    So all the price freeze did was enable to government to lie MORE!

    If Argentina wasn't an actual country, stories such as this would seem like far-fetched fiction.

    I guarantee a sever lack of Argentine interest and comments on this article.

    Mar 15th, 2013 - 11:26 am - Link - Report abuse 0
  • yankeeboy

    They can only keep this up as long as the already purchased supplies remain in stock. I give it a quarter of the year before there are no diapers in the country.
    Price controls don't fix anything they just make everything worse.
    Can you imagine buying bags of sugar on the street?
    Gads what an awful place.

    Mar 15th, 2013 - 12:19 pm - Link - Report abuse 0
  • Shed-time

    @9 but according to Tobias it's all malbec and roast meats? Who should we believe?

    Mar 15th, 2013 - 12:42 pm - Link - Report abuse 0
  • andy65

    As they say “Once a liar always a liar”

    Mar 15th, 2013 - 12:46 pm - Link - Report abuse 0
  • Conqueror

    @9 If you're right, and it looks that way to me as well, we should all be prepared. Prepared for what? To demand that our governments do nothing to aid argieland. As we all know, the argies have cheated, lied, stolen or tried to steal. The difficulty will be separating the argies from the Argentines. Argentines should, if necessary, be accepted as refugees. Argies will have to stay in what they have created. First order of business should be to confiscate enough argie assets to pay its debts. It's real debts. Not the reduced amounts it forced people to accept. Consideration should be given to prosecutions in an international tribunal of those involved in corruption and other criminal activities. Argie “politicians” should be the first, followed by all members of public services. Suitable arrangements will need to be made to hold them all in custody. Obviously there will be hundreds, or more likely thousands, of custodial sentences. Fortunately, argieland has plenty of space for prison camps guarded by UN troops. It would be appropriate retribution if they were required to work on suitable “projects”. I'm sure CFK, tinpotman, Putrid Jelly and their ilk would welcome the opportunity to re-lay rail tracks and lay new ones. The U.N. itself can look into rewriting the “constitution” and all the laws. The education “system” will need to be junked and a new one designed. So-called “teachers” will have to be tested in proper educational institutions and then gainfully employed. Road sweepers, ditch diggers, grave diggers will all be useful employments. On the well-known principle of “positive discrimination”, a new “government” can, in time, be selected from the Amerindian population. Is that a plan?

    Mar 15th, 2013 - 01:13 pm - Link - Report abuse 0
  • GFace

    Speaking Math to Power in a country where it's illegal to do so. I have to wonder if Integrating by Parts and Eigenvectors is a misdemeanor or a felony or a crime against humanity in Argentina.

    Mar 15th, 2013 - 02:52 pm - Link - Report abuse 0
  • God.Is.An.Illusion

    Would KFC be willing to take UY instead of FK?

    Mar 15th, 2013 - 03:32 pm - Link - Report abuse 0
  • bushpilot

    “and released by opposition lawmakers”

    Which means, “opposition politicians”.

    So, they are politicians reporting these alternate figures.

    I myself am not doubting that the official INDEC rates underrepresent the situation severely.

    But does anyone think politicians aren't going to fudge the figures themselves to serve their ends?

    Mar 15th, 2013 - 04:27 pm - Link - Report abuse 0
  • Anglotino

    @15 Bushpilot

    Did you ask yourself why politicians have to release the figures?

    The figures are compiled be economists but released under the protection of parliamentary immunity as it is illegal to state inflation figures different to the government.

    That is the icing on the farcical cake.

    Where are all the Argentines?

    Mar 15th, 2013 - 07:43 pm - Link - Report abuse 0
  • ChrisR

    Good old INDEC, you know how to make the dumb argies feel wealthy!

    Their money must be worth 2.46 times more than before surely?

    LMFAO.

    Mar 15th, 2013 - 07:46 pm - Link - Report abuse 0
  • bushpilot

    I'm ignorant on this and I want to ask.

    That underrepresented (false) inflation rate has the effect of ripping off bondholders. Is that accurate?

    How does that work?

    Mar 16th, 2013 - 12:29 am - Link - Report abuse 0
  • Think

    (15) bushpilot

    Lately you have been asking some quite intelligent questions....
    That's why I will allow myself to answer your latest....

    You ask...:
    “ does anyone think politicians aren't going to fudge the figures themselves to serve their ends?”

    I say:
    As a matter of fact,these “opposition politicians”are not really fudging the numbers. Their “Congressional Inflation Index” is pretty accurate..... Contrary to the “Official Inflation Index” that is rubbish.

    Having said that, I wish to clarify that it is NOT illegal to publish Inflation Statisticss different from the official INDEC.

    You just have to make available the methodology and the information you used to reach your figures.

    That rule has effectively stopped the worst “Rouge Elements” in our press that, without any basis in reality, used to announce every week or so that inflation was now “Really Out of Control”, mentioning figures of 40%, 50%, 60% or even more annual inflation.

    As you can see by the Congressional Inflation Index they were lying...

    Mar 16th, 2013 - 10:33 am - Link - Report abuse 0
  • yankeeboy

    What Think has conveniently left out is that the methodology/algorithms are trade secrets for these types of organizations. They a lot of time and effort to develop then prove their accuracy.
    So sure, give away your business and you can publish.

    That is what you get when the gov't is run by thugs.

    There is a lot of empirical evidence to suggest the Congressional Index is correct starting with the annual increase in Money Supply, it was 30% last year and it is projected to be 40% this year. Gosh, what do you think inflation will be this year...duh..somewhere above 40%/

    Think is a snake salesman don't believe a word he says.

    Mar 16th, 2013 - 11:24 am - Link - Report abuse 0
  • Anglotino

    Can anyone else name a country that fines people for publishing inflation figures that differ from the government's?

    Mar 16th, 2013 - 11:53 am - Link - Report abuse 0
  • ChrisR

    18 bushpilot
    ”That underrepresented (false) inflation rate has the effect of ripping off bondholders. Is that accurate?” Yes, it is.

    The bonds that the argies floated on the NY SE were tied to a base rate, subject to inflation.

    So, the lower the reported inflation the less the crooks had to pay as 'interest'.

    The trouble was, instead of shaving the reported figures marginally (so external authorities would not be sure if the figure was wrong) the idiots cut the figure to a point where it was obviously wrong, even to the man in the street.

    There have been all sorts of figures quoted relating to the loss (and therefore the amount the crooks will have to pay) of value to the bondholders but it will run to billions of dollars because the crooks have been doing it from the initial bond offering.

    It is for this reason that TMBOA is taking the difficult route of battering the US Courts: she has so much to lose and all caused by her dead husband Boss-Eyed Nestor who sacked all the original INDEC employees who must have been resisting his bent methods and replaced them with fellow gangsters, albeit amateurs at understanding how to misrepresent the value and get away with it..

    BTW Think is the biggest liar on MP. He did not tell you all the facts. Even companies that published obviously correct inflation figures were fined hundreds of thousands of USD. The only ones to escape fines now are the opposition 'lawmakers' who do try and get it right as far as I can tell. I have NEVER seen “40%, 50%, 60% or even more annual inflation” figures as quoted by 'The Biggest Liar On MP' El Think. He behaves so much like an old woman it ought to be La Think.

    Mar 16th, 2013 - 12:02 pm - Link - Report abuse 0
  • bushpilot

    Thank you Think. And thanks to the rest who gave me an answer. That is an interesting piece of politics. Not to the bondholders though. They must be pissed off.

    The bondholders don't want their rate of return being eaten by the inflation rate. They want their rate of return adjusted for inflation. I think I get it and INDEC lets the Argentine govt. be weasels with their agreements.

    But if they get paid in dollars, it wouldn't matter, would it? But, whether it is in dollars or pesos, the government just wants to pay out as little as possible.

    Any government would pull this trick on bondholders without some kind of watchdog. That is why the limp IMF is going through the motions, right?

    I want to ask something else.

    When that guy Ricardo Gil Lavedra of the Radicales groups comes into power, his party is going to use the honest figures, right?

    Mar 17th, 2013 - 02:36 am - Link - Report abuse 0
  • Anglotino

    I wonder if there are legal consequences should bond holders be able to prove the Argentine government lied and hence underpaid?

    Mar 17th, 2013 - 03:16 am - Link - Report abuse 0
  • Think

    (23) bushpilot

    You say...:
    “Any government would pull this trick on bondholders without some kind of watchdog.”
    I say...:
    Government, Banks, whatever................ you mention it.
    Ever heard of LIBOR?

    You ask further...:
    When that guy Ricardo Gil Lavedra of the Radicales groups comes into power, his party is going to use the honest figures, right?
    I say...:
    Suuure......

    Mar 17th, 2013 - 04:04 am - Link - Report abuse 0
  • MagnusMaster

    @23 “When that guy Ricardo Gil Lavedra of the Radicales groups comes into power, his party is going to use the honest figures, right?”

    The Radicals won't come into power. No leadership, not enough votes, not enough power. If a miracle occurs and they do get into power, the Peronists will kick them out anyway, like they did to Alfonsin.

    I guess the next Peronists will try to reduce inflation so there wouldn't be any need to fudge figures. That or tear up the bonds agreements that indexed bonds to inflation. Not sure what would happen with the bondholders.

    Some believe that Argentina didn't save much money by fudging inflation figures, and that the real reason behind the manipulation of the INDEC was that Nestor believed that reality can be bent at will by controlling and manipulating information, so if you said inflation was low it would magically reduce inflation. This comes from a post-modern philosophy that claims that there is no objective reality, only interpretations from what people perceive, which Kirchner and all its followers adhere. This is one reason the Kirchners are so keen on propaganda.

    Mar 17th, 2013 - 04:34 am - Link - Report abuse 0
  • Think

    (26) MagnusMaster
    You say...:
    “Nestor believed that reality can be bent at will by controlling and manipulating information. This comes from a post-modern philosophy that claims......”

    I say..:
    Only Nestor?
    Ever heard about “WMD's” in Iraq?
    Ever heard about “FIAT” money?
    Ever heard of Rupert Murdoch?
    Ever heard about LIBOR?

    To end this little Desmothenian philippic I just want to say..: Nothing “Post-Modern” about this philosophy, laddie.

    Saludos from Chubut
    El Think

    Mar 17th, 2013 - 09:05 am - Link - Report abuse 0
  • God.Is.An.Illusion

    A normal Argentina is an illusion under this Administration

    Mar 17th, 2013 - 12:17 pm - Link - Report abuse 0

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