MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency
Macri's Argentina back from world isolation except from Venezuela and Iran
Argentine President Mauricio Macri said Friday that “we have come from years of isolation and bad relations with almost all countries except Venezuela and Iran.” He added that “this year we have experienced a Copernican change in that sense.” Read full article
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Disclaimer & comment rulesThe behavior and past history of the list of “” “ 'friends' ” “” we are now courting is far more appalling though.... Fact.
Dec 17th, 2016 - 10:49 am - Link - Report abuse -4A fact believed and perpetuated by a certain class of Argentino's. Do you live in Argentina also?
Dec 17th, 2016 - 04:39 pm - Link - Report abuse +4Choosing a feel-good, one-source story when the Argentine economy crumbles is not the best example of responsible journalism.
Dec 17th, 2016 - 06:41 pm - Link - Report abuse -3Macri is shown as a good boy, courting the western powers and pestering against the designed “bad guys” of the day while internacional bodies are asking him tfor the release of political prisoner Milagro Salas,
Who says he is a “political” prisoner, just you and the K farces? !!
Dec 17th, 2016 - 07:53 pm - Link - Report abuse +2Macri should have added after Venezuela 'and 14M bat-shit mad Argentine Peronistas.
Dec 17th, 2016 - 07:55 pm - Link - Report abuse -3Reekie:
“the release of political prisoner Milagro Salas,”
Perhaps a 9mm bullet through the nasal cavity would suffice.
this european implant thinks he is back in the world but Argentina is never being more irrelevant in the world, the neopotism in Argentina is the worst in the world sending police to beat women, keeping political prisoners, killing prisoners who wont incriminate other politicians. opining bank account to evade taxes. buy a bank to funnel money out of the country without paying taxes. threatening journalist and the list get longer by the day.
Dec 17th, 2016 - 08:43 pm - Link - Report abuse -2Mr Hunter,
Dec 17th, 2016 - 09:30 pm - Link - Report abuse 0Somehow, yourvrant dounds familiar.
Are you reading the same script as Nostrils and Mr. Massot in Canada.
I doubt any of you live in Argentina anymore, if ever.
Questions:
1) How can the elected President of Argentina, born in Argentina, be an “implanted European”?
2) I“mplanted” by whom?
3) What “political prisoners” - those charged with corruption and theft, or those with a differing ideology?
4) Beating what women? The ones that try to force their way past Security Forces at a high-level Intwrnational Government Conference they are not invited to?
Those wanting to create an International Incident?
5) Nepotism? Do you mean the established tradition established under Peron and exhibited by Evita K and Nestor, hiring Fat Max their son, to run the airline and La Campora? Their daughter Florencia to make government propaganda movies? Or do you mean their pet banker, who hired his Univerty student daughter for a top position in the Federal Bank?
6) Threatening journalists? Like trying to silence Clarin, while using free government-televised football matches to spread CFK's propaganda ?
7) Killing? Do you mean, intimidating and then KILLING Nisman to stop him bringing Evita K to justice?
Yes, the precedent is well established in Argentina- by CFK's government.
And the list keeps growing.
Card to comment?
And Argentina was doing so well under CFK, paying 9.4% on loans from Venezuela when Chile was paying 3.2 % for its debt.
Dec 17th, 2016 - 09:41 pm - Link - Report abuse +4From the leftist media:
“ ......[under CFK] protectionist policies in Argentina destroyed the very agricultural and manufacturing heartland they were intended to help. The aim was to become self-reliant on domestic production and penalize those who exported or imported goods. Soy export tariffs, for example, eventually reached 50 percent, terminally crippling the crown jewel of Argentina’s once thriving agricultural sector.By the same token, import restrictions started small-scale trade wars, and by 2015 trade conflicts erupted with more than 40 different countries. This left the domestic agricultural and manufacturing sectors in disarray. As recently as 2002, Argentina had a trade surplus of 16 percent of gross domestic product, but after more than a decade of protectionism, the entire surplus was erased, and 2015 ended in a deficit. Second, looking for easy sources of growth and debt financing, the government turned to the central bank. Destroying its supposed independence, the government influenced it to aggressively loosen policy. The result: Inflation exceeded 40 percent, hurting growth instead of helping it.Third, oppressive regulations strangled the private sector. The government began controlling things like the price of gas, the value of the exchange rate and nationalization of the private pension system. Artificially distorted prices at first led industry to stop new investment and, later, to stop production altogether. Huge shortages developed. For example, although Argentina has significant natural energy resources, government regulation created huge energy deficits because artificially set prices and burdensome regulation made private investment completely infeasible... the government eventually ran out of money with little to show for its largess, as average annual G.D.P. growth was a meager 0.3 percent between 2011 and 2015.”
@2
Dec 18th, 2016 - 04:44 am - Link - Report abuse -5Well I for once have never heard of the Iranian Empire, or the Venezuelan Empire, have you? French, British, Spanish, German, Portuguese Empires on the other hand...
So it is a fact.
While Marti remains mired in the past, let's take a look at how Argentina is doing one year after the Macri government became in charge of business.
Dec 18th, 2016 - 07:00 am - Link - Report abuse -7The country, which had experienced some growth during 2015, arrives to the end of 2016 with a two per cent decrease in GDP.
In terms of growth, Argentina is sits with the fourth worse performing countries in Latin America, downperformed by Venezuela, Brazil and Ecuador.
Meanwhile, seven other Latin American countries grew their economies in 2016, with the best performing being none other than...Bolivia, under Evo Morales' government.
Of the flood of foreign investment--which president Macri expected to be US$ 20 billion US Dollars--only US$3.64 billion in private investment had been registered by the end of the fourth quarter.
http://www.buenosairesherald.com/article/224020/waiting-for-the-flood-of-investment.
Even worse, Argentina reaches the end of the first year of Macrist administration amid growing social protest that for now happens in pockets and does not threat the government's survival--but it's not guaranteed it will remain so forever.
Coupled with recession, inflation has not only remained, but surpassed inflation under the previous government.
Numbers registered in Ciudad de Buenos Aires record 19.9 per cent inflation between Dec. 2014 and Oct. 2015.
For the period running from Dec. 2015 to Oct. 2016, inflation shot up to 35.6 per cent.
Some administration.
Mr Enrique,
Dec 18th, 2016 - 07:58 am - Link - Report abuse +419.9% inflation during the last 11 mos. of CFK/Kicilloff economy? Are you kidding?
Would that have been the INDEC statistics of the past regime??
@ Fidel_CasTroll
Dec 18th, 2016 - 12:18 pm - Link - Report abuse -2You've never heard of the Persian Empire?! But that was a long time ago, of course. Perhaps you have heard of Iran's proxy war with Saudi Arabia and sponsoring of terrorism in such countries as Argentina? That is still ongoing.
@ ML
Nice article. I see it begins by warning America away from pursuing such policies, a warning which Americans have chosen to ignore.
@ Troy Tempest
Actually the UN and the OAS say it, also Amnesty International.
@Reekie, we have to explain these things over and over:
Dec 18th, 2016 - 02:14 pm - Link - Report abuse +21. The economic failures of a long history of a failed nation are not going to magically turn to gold overnight. The inertia of decades of counterproductive protectionism, backward technologies, massive corruption, and anti-competitive strategies would take decades to overcome. And frankly, there is little indication that Argentina even wants to change in ways that would matter.
2. The Argentine economic condition in December 2015 was a failure and the Argentine economic situation in December 2016 is a failure. The trend continues. Little has changed.
3. Nobody with any sense trusts Argentine institutions that might otherwise be favourable to investment here. Little has changed.
4. Very little has changed that makes any difference in making Argentina attractive for more than a weekend visit.
5. Argentina has very little to offer the world in today's marketplace, and that deficiency doesn't vary with a change in government.
6. Despite some window-dressing changes, Argentina remains one of the worst places in the world to set up and operate a business. That hasn't really changed.
7. Argentine labour syndicates might as well be honest and hold up placards that read “foreign investor go home.” Its Foreign Office posters might say “We're the same belligerent donkeys as always.” Nothing of consequence has changed.
8. Argentine legislation, judicial system, foreign policy, taxation, bureaucracy, corruption, and social order remain toxic and hostile to foreign investment: very little of any real consequence has changed.
We didn't see you coming to Argentina to bask in the failures of the Kirchner governments, reekie, and we don't see you coming to Argentina to enjoy the continuing failure of the present government.
Remember this: Same Shit, Different Day.
I find it odd that a country with very imaginative “folklore”, especially its curious claim of sovereignty of the Falklands archipelago, could possibly make this outrageous asseveration.
Dec 18th, 2016 - 05:39 pm - Link - Report abuse +2“Evita” Kanye:
Dec 18th, 2016 - 07:35 pm - Link - Report abuse -6Go back and read again my posting, dear. The numbers I provided are those of Ciudad de Buenos Aires, not INDEC numbers. the City of Buenos Aires was governed by Macri until December 9, 2015. If you want to argue that Macri faked the numbers be my guest.
Marti:
Please spare us your Chicago Boys-style lectures.
Of course, Argentina is not going to regress to become a provider of cheap labour for large multinational corporations, and yes, unions with all their flaws are there to stay.
After insisting Argentina will remain in deep sh*t until it's governed by somebody else than Argentines, you now argue that the country has failed to spread its lower limbs wide enough as to attract foreign capital.
However, when faced with current negative data, you blame all things on “Argentina” but avoid naming the Macri government disastrous measures.
Following the same strategy used by Clarin and TN, you remain blaming all on how baaaad the CFK government, which ceased to be in charge a year ago, was.
You, as Clarin and TN, keep trying to keep current an increaingly out of touch narrative that blames all on the Kirchnerist governments, increasingly negated by the day-to-day realities of Argentines confronted with the quickest degradation of the economy they ever faced before.
So reekie, you are finally starting to understand that Argentina's problems are caused by Argentine institutions? That the country's resistance to corrective measures will keep the economy in the dumps and accelerating toward its regularly scheduled next default. And that no matter what government is fouling the Pink House, that the country is going to be screwed. It is encouraging to see that you have finally come to acknowledge that.
Dec 18th, 2016 - 11:45 pm - Link - Report abuse +5Come-on Reekie
Dec 19th, 2016 - 11:52 am - Link - Report abuse +1Tell us how Argentina is going to get out of the mess that it finds itself in? Don't be shy, never mind who and when Argentina was governed, you can tell us how Argentina can move forward as you are soooo in the loop
The Evita Kirchner / Kicilloff model was an out and out failure, and a 'fuck you' to creditors.
Dec 19th, 2016 - 02:50 pm - Link - Report abuse +1Macri is at least trying, despite the albatross around his neck.
@Kayne
Dec 19th, 2016 - 04:27 pm - Link - Report abuse +3That albatross is really the elephant. The elephant in the room. Argie wannbe reekie (and many other people here) won't recognise that the abysmal state of the economy in Argentina is largely the result of not only current regional/global downturn and loss of external markets but also the long-embedded institutions in Argentina will take decades to improve meaningfully. Look at how long it took the US and UK auto industries to see their deeply entrenched legacies and non-competitive nature inevitably leading to painful near-collapse (GM went bankrupt in 2009). We can only wonder whether Argentina will continue with its endemic counterproductive institutions and anachronistic measures before we see real collapse.
Industrial sector labour costs are insanely high in Argentina, both when compared to actual productivity and against those of highly industrialised Brazil. Little has changed with the new government here. In 2013 average Argentine industry salaries were about double those of Brazil. Even after the devaluation earlier this year, the relationship remained about the same: on average, Argentine industry workers received double what Brazilian industry workers get, while native Argentine industrial output is largely of poorer quality and antiquated design. An exception to native Argentine industry output is when foreign industry manages Argentine production, as when Toyota keeps a comparatively close watch on quality control here. Even so, Toyota imports a lot of higher technology parts from other sources, outside of Argentina. Another irony: Argentine auto mechanics are generally quite good, but expensive. Chilean mechanics are expensive but not very good. In Chile we can get parts; we can't get parts in Argentina. So my mechanic gives me a list of what to acquire in Chile with source precedence: if possible, a Japanese part. If not, Brazilian, and Argentine-made only if there is no other choice.
Specialist on all things Argentina, Marti insists one of the country's difficults is rooted on its high labour costs and its “endemic counterproductive institutions.”
Dec 19th, 2016 - 05:31 pm - Link - Report abuse -3As for the institutions, it's difficult to see where Marti is going--but indeed the phrase sounds very intellectual!
President Mauricio Macri is trying hard to do just that--but he is meeting with stubborn resistence from some unions and social organizations that multiplied in the last decades of democracy.
This has left our good commentator deeply unsatisfied: Macri is a disappointment. He forgets that projects to bring a country backwards to an earlier, more primitive state are easily done by force, but problematic in democracy.
Marti then offers us detailed information on the relative qualifications of mechanics in Argentina in relation to the Chilean ones.
“So my mechanic gives me a list of what to acquire in Chile,” reports our distinguished commentator, already at lost as to what he was trying to demonstrate.
“Argentine auto mechanics are generally quite good, but expensive. Chilean mechanics are expensive but not very good,” adds our in-house expert.
Perhaps Marti can tell us how much better is creme caramel (dulce de leche) made in Chile, and how's the quality level of clementines from Uruguay, sweet potatoes from Brazil, raisins from India, and the cherry is, Argentina is importing yerba mate!
These are some of the items that are filling the shelves in Macri's Argentine supermarkets and killing domestic small and medium size enterprises.
No--it's not Argentine institutions. Each incoming government has some goals, and Macri has come to put a foot on the head of people and concentrate more wealth in fewer hands.
A huge setback for the country--temporary only.
It's always fun to see how reekie fails to understand the concept of competitiveness in commerce. And the nature of global trade.
Dec 19th, 2016 - 07:37 pm - Link - Report abuse +3“Argentina is importing yerba mate!” says reekie, as if the sky were falling.
Argentina imports apples from Chile, too. Argentina imports fish as well. And chicken. And pork. And not just pork from cualquier país, but Argentina is importing pork from Denmark ! And spinach from Europe. And carrots from Chile. Potato products from the US.
Why? Because of the excessive costs of production of these goods in Argentina, or the inability and/or unwillingness of Argentine producers to provide a quality product at a competitive price. Because it's cheaper to import food from countries that can produce these things more efficiently. High taxes and “protected industry” breed inefficiency and higher costs and keeps a country from developing the ability to do things better.
Do you understand the concept of “efficiency” reekie? How about “competitiveness”? Or even “quality”?
I didn't think so. These do not exist in traditional peronist thinking. That is part of why the cost of many food items produced in Argentina is stupidly high and becoming more so.
Peronism thought that it could provide more cheap meat within this country by forbidding exports of beef and then later heavily restricting beef exports. What did this accomplish? The severe reduction in availability of beef in the country, and large price increases.
On our weekly shopping trips down to Chile I check the sources of food items there (we can import certain types of food back into Argentina). I was looking at the beans sold in Punta Arenas. They come from North America. Argentina, The Big Bean Producer, is right next door but North American efficiencies are such that their beans are more competitive than argie beans in Chile. Likewise Chile is now importing frozen chicken from the US since the Argentine product is not competitively priced.
ML
Dec 19th, 2016 - 10:03 pm - Link - Report abuse +1You might mention to the Canadian Gaucho, Enrique, that such protectionist policies, if they were not initiated by EVITA Kirchner during her reign, she at least implemented and promoted them.
Argentina not only became uncompetitive, but came to rely on cheaper products from elsewhere.
Even with Macri reversing her policies, it takes time for industries to learn efficiencies and innovation, to become competitive again. It then takes them a long time to develop confidence in their products and reclaim market share.
Yippee Kye “eh”, El Gaucho!!
Socialist Nations: An educational video.
Dec 20th, 2016 - 12:01 am - Link - Report abuse 0https://youtu.be/n6DEQ_VvBLI
Sr. Massot...
Dec 20th, 2016 - 02:26 am - Link - Report abuse -1Numbers are looking good for us..., progressive democratic socialists..., in the Argentinean 2017 Mid-term election, the 2018 Brazilian Presidental Election and the 2018 Paraguayan Presdential Election...
Resilience..., compadre...
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=DkFJE8ZdeG8
@tinkle “Numbers are looking good for us”
Dec 20th, 2016 - 02:38 am - Link - Report abuse 0Those numbers are just accelerator factors, towards the next default. It's then that we take advantage of the sudden decay in prices here as the AR currency becomes worthless, right on schedule, and with USD buy up certain items that within a short time will respond to the inevitable inflation, to be sold then at tidy profit and converted to more stable currencies before the next inevitable crash.
Parasites have a function too...
Dec 20th, 2016 - 03:05 am - Link - Report abuse 0The Supreme Architect of the Universe ain't a Turnip...
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effects_of_parasitic_worms_on_the_immune_system
When it comes to parasitic worms, the Somalian dog-catcher Tinkle reveals the effects of intimate involvement.
Dec 20th, 2016 - 12:43 pm - Link - Report abuse 0Marti
Dec 21st, 2016 - 08:13 pm - Link - Report abuse -1“The next default...It's then that we...with USD buy up certain items that...will respond to the inevitable inflation, to be sold then at tidy profit...”
No sh...t Marti!
Of course, crisis are not designed to make everybody suffer. Those with the means to speculate can, as Marti proudly explains in detail.
And those crisis do not happen just by the grace of the sancti spiritus. In today's Argentina, the new national sport is to buy 35-day Lebac government bonds that pay interests rates of around 25 per cent.
Why would anybody invest in productive activities when cash can multiply so fast courtesy of the Argentine Central Bank?
Why would anybody produce anything in Argentina when it can be easily imported for cheaper, which our stern commentator Marti attributes to high local costs (which includes the U.S. and other developed countries--too bad for Detroit citizens).
But back to this sad “cronica de una muerte anunciada.” What's going to happen in Argentina is easy to see by reading what Reuters reported back in June:
”The central bank (lowers rates) to push back against a tide of short-term foreign investment, also known as hot money or speculative capital...”
http://www.reuters.com/article/argentina-cenbank-bonds-idUSL1N1962GP
So while foreign and domestic investors make a kill in ways much more sophisticated than Marti, the president's easy ways are deliberately walking the country to the next inevitable collapse.
@Think:
Gracias. Nuestros sufrido pueblo latinoamericano nunca se rinde.
@ reekie: “....35-day Lebac government bonds that pay interests rates of around 25 per cent.
Dec 21st, 2016 - 10:05 pm - Link - Report abuse +1Why would anybody invest in productive activities when cash can multiply so fast ...
Aw, reekie, you have conveniently forgotten that during the CFK regime that short term loans in Argentina were going for 40 to 70 percent interest. For a while in 2014 the interest rates for some personal loans by banks were over 110 %.
But then, you don't understand how economics work in the real world, nor the role of the Lebacs in controlling inflation over a period of time. Nor could you be expected to understand how the excessive money supply created by the CFK regime brought about enduring inflation at over 40 percent and how long it takes and what measures are needed to bring that level of inflation down. It doesn't happen magically nor overnight. But you could not be expected to understand how these things work, por ser peroncho.
Vuestro ”sufrido pueblo” letrinamericano no se rinde, sino simplemente fracasa y fracasa y fracasa y vuelve a fracasar.
Geeeeeeeee......
Dec 21st, 2016 - 10:14 pm - Link - Report abuse -1The Macri police seems to be workin' in favour of the triumph of the progressive democratic socialist forces in the Argentinean 2017 Mid-term election....
This video from today shows the police “handling” of a young woman armed with a dangerous white t-shirt... that also happens to be a member of our national parliament...:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=YLS-XAoWjIM
Turnips...!
@Kamerad/Komrade Rique
Dec 24th, 2016 - 06:41 am - Link - Report abuse 0“ Nuestros sufrido pueblo latinoamericano nunca se rinde.”
That's the funniest thing I've seen you post in here, Skullface. Lest we forget, you ran away, and apparently do not dare go back. ;)
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