MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency
August inflation in Argentina reverses tendency and again shoots up: 4%
Prices in Argentina shot up last month after a shocking primary vote plunged the peso, reversing four months of declines. Read full article
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Disclaimer & comment rulesWhat??? Zero comments??? What the heck happened to the sharp MP commentators on all things Argentina? Have they been hit by a sudden bout of yellow fever?
Sep 14th, 2019 - 04:12 am - Link - Report abuse +1Anyway, Argentina's agonizing situation should be at least a motive of analysis. How a government that applied the most orthodox free-market theories can drag a country to the ground in just four years?
It must be the USA, Macri said. Or the Russians. Or the drought. Wait, it's the fault of the previous government. No, it's rather the fault of the upcoming government.
Turns out inflation is far from the easiest thing in the world to fix....
Sep 16th, 2019 - 09:26 am - Link - Report abuse -1But Argentina is a big agricultural country, they are not reliant on imports to feed their population, so why does it affect the price of food so much?
“Educating Rita” ( DemonTree, in this case)...
Sep 17th, 2019 - 06:11 am - Link - Report abuse -2Because Argentina is a big agricultural country, we export our production to the rest of the world...
The “Market” does not fancy to define those agricultural products as food..., they prefer to denominate them...: “Commodities”...
“Commodities” are priced in Dollars...
We Argies earn in Pesos...
Start Capisicing...?
The previous Argie administration corrected the above mentioned inbalance by applying export taxes to most commodities and export quotas to some...
(More or less the same system they use in the EU..., were food is basically cheaper (for the average consumer) than in Argentina or India... They just call them tariffs and subsidies...)
The current administration just cancelled all export taxes and quotas..., creating the current situation...
Capisce now...?
You might be interested in this: https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2011/jan/23/food-speculation-banks-hunger-poverty
Sep 17th, 2019 - 09:25 am - Link - Report abuse -1In the EU it goes the other way, the tariffs and quotas are on imports, not exports. Did you notice how terribly concerned France and Ireland are about the Brazilian rainforest? They care so very much about the environment they're willing to veto the deal with Mercosur (and all its cheap beef imports) solely in order to protect it. ;)
More seriously, the CAP is a mess and badly in need of reform, but there are too many interests involved to make it anything but cumbersome monster.
EM,
Sep 17th, 2019 - 04:48 pm - Link - Report abuse 0“How a government that applied the most orthodox free-market theories can drag a country to the ground in just four years?”
Wasn't it already on the ground? It was in technical default.
“Wait, it's the fault of the previous government. No, it's rather the fault of the upcoming government.”
You've nailed it. The credit ratings fit that explanation perfectly. Well done.
What rubbish. The US has been in technical default before when it screwed up its payments and it certainly didn't drive the country into the ground.
Sep 17th, 2019 - 05:06 pm - Link - Report abuse 0In 2015 Argentina's economy was shaky and stalling, but it wasn't in recession, unemployment wasn't near 10% and inflation was much lower. Oh yeah, and they didn't owe $57,000,000,000 to the IMF. Whatever problems Macri inherited, he'll be passing on much bigger ones at the end of the year, with an added burden of debt repayments.
As for credit ratings, I remember when Osbourne insisted the UK needed austerity to preserve ours. It caused another recession and the ratings agency lowered it anyway. Pretty foolish, huh?
@DT
Sep 20th, 2019 - 12:02 am - Link - Report abuse 0You summarized it very well.
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