Just a news scoop from today's online newspapers, since time doesn't permit anything else...
From Clarín, the new enemy of the people according to Kirchnerist doctrine: the government reports poverty in Argentina is down to 20.7%, while private estimates (where the price of the food basket used to calculate the poverty line is not grossly fudged) place it at close to 30%, and in the meantime, the census bureau INDEC suddenly announces that it won't take into account the measurements of inflation outside the Greater Buenos Aires area, where the fudging is effected. In fact, the Kirchnerist mayors of Greater Buenos Aires have been ordered to send inspectors to check prices in the field and report to Commerce Secretary Guillermo Moreno, in case these "deviations from the ideal" have to be, let's say, corrected. And while the anti-inflation brigades keep prices down in the cities, piquetero leader Luis D'Elía says he's taking his guys to the countryside to defend the government against the evil machinations of coup-inciting farmers on strike.
From Crítica Digital we also learn that members of three different gangs groups of piqueteros K attacked Luciano Miguens, head of the Sociedad Rural Argentina (i.e. the Argentine Rural Society, aka "the Oligarchy"), the police being suspiciously absent at the time, and the Jóvenes K (that is, the Kirchnerist Youth) protested at Clarín's kiosk at the Buenos Aires Book Fair.
From Página/12, recently remade as the government's official press organ, we hear nothing of all this. How many fingers am I holding up, Winston?
14 May 2008
Crazy Argentina, take 1
Stumble it!
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How can I help seeing what is in front of my eyes?
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Who controls the past controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.
I do believe poverty is likely at the 30% level or even higher. I have recently read that if your household income is not more than 2200 peso's per month, than you are living below the poverty line.
ReplyDeleteMy experience here in Mendoza, is many people are living below that threshold.
The government seems to be Crazier than I imagined!
I don't know what's worse, if poverty itself or the government's state of denial. Everybody keeps saying that we're losing a great opportunity -- never in our recent history has Argentina had so much money, so much growth, so much potential. The government could rebuild the whole country, roads, railways, hospitals, homes for the poor, and that without increasing taxes, but instead it chooses to play this ridiculous power game and doesn't see what dangerous place they're getting themselves (and us) into.
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