Amado Boudou

I'm being asked to come back and write something. So instead of apologizing (again) for doing something else instead of writing, I thought I'd share short snippets of my thoughts that might interest my readership. Here comes one: did you know (or notice) that phonetically, the name of our latest Minister of Economy, Amado Boudou, means Beloved Voodoo?

Voodoo seems an appropriate subject to relate to the minister. Our economy, with its ups and downs, is faring surprisingly well given the crisis, but since Néstor Kirchner decided to get rid of Roberto Lavagna, the office of the Minister of Economy is like a periodically revived zombie. When someone alive steps into the post, or she or he's promptly bludgeoned into an undead state by the Kirchners' requirements of absolute loyalty. Felisa Miceli was an undead from the start, as was Miguel Peirano; his successor, Martín Lousteau, like him a promising, independent young minister, made the grave mistake of proposing Resolution 125 and the fatal one of disturbing the government's inflation denialism, and lasted very little after that; Carlos Fernández was barely seen or heard, an undead without even the redeeming features of romanticism or tragedy, and passed without a sigh.

Argentine governments tend to burn economy ministers fairly quickly. Boudou has just started and he's half wasted already, having had several members of his work team vetoed or hand-picked by Néstor Kirchner on the basis of personal loyalty. Want to bet how long he'll last?

Seven point two

7.2%

According to the official datum of inflation ("it is no longer correct to call it a measurement, since it is not measured", as La Nación reads today), during 2008 the Consumer Price Index rose by 7.2%, the smallest rate in four years. The Basic Food Basket, which enters the calculation of the poverty line, rose by less than a half of a percentage point (less than 2 pesos). So last year was a bargain. How come we didn't notice?

One strongly feels that this is about it — it's just not possible to lie any more than this and still pretend to be in contact with reality. The government first denied there was inflation, then accused a vaguely defined ensemble of foes of fueling price increases, all the while letting the thuggish Secretary of Trade, Guillermo Moreno, mangle the figures produced by INDEC. Last year the mangling became unnecessary: you don't have to tweak the figures when you've intimidated all the figure-checking personnel into silence or replaced them by your own employees.

Although the real inflation rate, as measured by several independent sources, is about three times the one reported by INDEC, it doesn't really matter to anyone (except the holders of inflation-pegged bonds, for whom this represents a fraud for $5.5 billion). People in the streets have turned from anger to indifference. As in many other respects, this once promising-looking government has abandoned us. We know they're lying, they know we know, and we know they know we know. How they plan to stay on top for three more years like this is a mystery to me. We can only hope they will die with a whimper and not with a bang.

Expensive, those principles (by Martín Caparrós)

What follows is a translation of an article by Martín Caparrós on today's Crítica Digital (Caros, los principios) about the sweeping tax and capital smuggling amnesty proposed by Kirchner's government and currently being discussed in Congress. In dire need of fresh funds, Cristina is basically offering criminals a free pass to launder their money in Argentina, and inviting all those Argentinians who illegally sent their undeclared foreign currency abroad to take them back without paying taxes, dropping any legal investigations under way. [For some more background, see the American Task Force coverage.] Caparrós, once a leftist militant, again voices his disappointment with this supposedly progressive government, whose true leader (Néstor Kirchner) famously said he would never agree to check his principles at the door of the Casa Rosada.

The good thing is that we now at least know how much they're worth. Or rather how much they believe they're worth. (It may be, if anything, as in the classical sudaca joke about the best business deal: buy an Argentinian for what he's worth, sell him for what he thinks he's worth.) We now know, I was saying, the price. They're not cheap: they must believe their principles are better than they look — and they're charging a lot for them. The savings repatriation and tax moratorium proposal, which Congress began discussing yesterday, is that: a price label. They were supposed to have some principles: equality before the law, opposition to financial capitalism, a "new tax culture", a push towards some [wealth] redistribution by the State, an insistence on justice being made despite [purposeful] oversights. All of which crumbles when the government tells those who took away the money, those who evaded taxes, that there's no problem, that everything's forgotten. For a handful of dollars: various economists reckon that, on the best scenario, five percent of the Argentine capital that escaped might come back — that is, some six billion. That, if anyone believes them and brings in the bucks, which isn't a safe bet at all. With luck, the State could recover 10% of that 5%, some 600 million, and at the same time, of course, take advantage of the modicum of reactivation that money could bring to our economy.

That's what their principles are worth. Or rather the price of shitting on them: if you laundered money, if you evaded taxes, if you forged your bills to take home your "10% commission", don't worry, we'll fix it; and if you were in jail, you can now go home. If you stole 10 kilos of beef from the butcher's on the corner, or 80 pesos from some boy on a dark street, then no, this deal doesn't include you. Evading taxes is not stealing from one person — it's stealing from all of them, from the State which should spend that money on schools and hospitals for everyone, or at least for those who don't have them. Tax evasion is robbery worse than any other robbery: it's robbing those who have the least. These are the crooks this law wants to spare: the big crooks, the shirt-and-tie ones, the friends.

That's why this law is a full stop: a point of no return. If they pass it as it is, they won't ever again be able to speak of their principles: they will have sold them, under the excuse of a crisis that didn't exist days ago. A bit expensive, it's true: as in that bad joke.

The translation is free; the links are mine. Caparrós employs a few local references that may not be obvious unless you live in Argentina: the use of sudaca as a self-effacing slur; the soundbite por una nueva cultura tributaria ("for a new tax culture") which the Federal Tax Administration uses to advertise its fight for citizens' fiscal responsibility (which this moratorium turns into a mockery); the diego or "10% commission" — an euphemism for bribery; the expression punto final, which compares this obscene pardon for the wealthy to the law that halted investigations of the dictatorship's crimes. It just came out and I felt I had to share.

Nationalizing pension funds: more money for the Kirchners?

It's time again for a depressing anti-government post! This time, about the nationalization of AFJPs (private retirement funds). I strongly feel it's a good idea, and as strongly as that I also feel we must keep it from happening as intended by president Néstor Kirchner. (If you think Cristina's the one in charge, you must be living inside a jar, as we say over here. For months she's been devoting her time exclusively to cutting ribbons to [unfinished] public works and, lately, to writing newspaper articles in praise of her husband's ideas. Néstor is de facto big guy.)

Now you mustn't believe I do this because I like destructive criticism. I'm absolutely for "big government" as Americans call it, and I believe important stuff should never be left fully in the hands of private corporate interests whose creed is "make money fast whatever way you can". Kirchner's government has taken us far in this sense, and that's OK.

The problem with the Kirchner administration is that they always, somehow, manage to turn good theory into bad practice, and for a long while now (and not because the media or the far right are trying to make it look so, as C&K passionately believe) everything they've proposed has been born tainted by association. Or, as in this case, destined to fail before (a good part of) public opinion because common sense and the typical Argentine paranoia will kick in, and all alarms will go off, as soon as the state gets close to our pockets.

About 15 years ago, the law that allowed the creation of the AFJP system was drafted and passed, accompanied with a heartfelt defense of private capital accumulation (the so-called "capitalization scheme") by many who now profess to be old-time fans of the old-fashioned state-regulated collective saving scheme, including many faithful Kirchnerists (flip-flopping is another word for pragmatism — the only thing that can be truly called "Peronist doctrine"). Gobs of money were transferred to private capitalization accounts from the state's coffers, and the AFJPs (Administradoras de Fondos de Jubilaciones y Pensiones) started recruiting associates. The law said if you didn't choose where your retirement funds should go, then it would be automatically assigned to an AFJP; thus millions of distracted workers were signed up for a massive speculative operation. The AFJPs invested money in assets of various kinds and for a while they actually increased their clients' funds, although they charged huge commissions.

Pensions were frozen for ten years, as the economy entered into a low-growth phase, unemployment rose steadily, and finally recession entered the picture. After president Carlos Menem (cursed be his name) got away with murder, president Fernando de la Rúa found the dying economy and, instead of trying to resuscitate it, he finished it off with such nice measures as cutting 13% of pension payments. We all know what happened then... so fast forward to 2003.

Néstor Kirchner passed a series of decrees increasing both salaries and pensions, which were well-received, even as employers complained. The economy took off and pensions did as well. There was a small problem, though: the private pension funds couldn't keep up. They started losing money. The law said that the state must guarantee pension payments, if necessary by compensating (subsidizing) the private funds. So the state poured money into the AFJPs, whose risky investments had proven disastrous (does that sound familiar?), and when the companies began accumulating too much debt, the government forced them to buy national debt bonds. Yes, that's right: the government forced the guarantors of retirement funds for millions of Argentinians to accept what amounted to wet paper in order to rid itself of them (the only other feasible destination for those bonds was Hugo Chávez).

In January 2008, after the scarce enthusiasm that followed Cristina's election had faded, someone near her came up with the idea of "letting people choose" where to place their retirement savings. The Kirchnerists hastily passed a law opening up the choice for everyone: 180 days to take your money away from the private box to the state's bag (or the other way round). And the law also established that, if newcomers to the labor market didn't explicitly choose which way, their funds would go to the state system, not some AFJP. The AFJPs understandably lost a lot of clients, but in all fairness they deserved to, and the law didn't force anyone to accept anything against their interest. It had some other very good points as well, so good in fact that, "better late than never" aside, some of us wondered why it hadn't been passed before. Like four years before.

The answer came easily. Why indeed? Because it was only now that the economy had begun slowing down, while debt payments were looming closer and the whole economic structure was showing the strain. High inflation, high interest rates, no way to get fresh funding for things like the bullet train, and the need to pump more and more money into subsidies for electric power, drinking water, fuel, natural gas and everything else. Néstor Kirchner had always ruled with a big wallet of state money freely available to him, but Cristina's future was uncertain. The fresh funds from the AFJPs, of course, should have never been used to fund the state in any respect other than pension payments, but the new law didn't say anything about that. Already in 2007, his last year, Kirchner had signed a decree allowing the government to divert funds from ANSeS (the social security agency) to expenses such as public works.

After the fiasco of Resolution 125 (another, more desperate attempt to get money for the state) came the worldwide financial crisis. After being deprived of juicy taxes on exports of soybean, both exporters and the government have seen the prices of soybean plummet to half the levels of the first quarter: less and less money! Subsidies on buses, natural gas and power were reduced, but that's not enough; with a world recession looming, and the economy visibly decelerating, it would be economic suicide to raise the prices of basic services. On top of that, 2009 is an electoral year, and that means a lot of wills and votes must be bought. Back then, Néstor and Cristina could campaign all year round, visiting one town after another in provinces with "loyal" governors, handing out multimillion checks without any real oversight, and making sure crowds of bussed-in "supporters" would be ready to applaud their presence; but all that costs money.

The national state keeps about 70% of what the provinces contribute, and what it shares, it does so rather unfairly. Most provincial governments are strapped for cash right now, and more than a few are absolutely dependent, on a short-term basis, on presidential whims when it comes to distribution.

Kirchner's desperation is now becoming noticeable. Initially he ordered the bill that nationalizes AFJPs to be approved and turned into law at once, without any changes. His parliamentary bulldog, deputy Agustín Rossi, first attempted this, then saw it was impossible, and timidly conceded that the government's bloc would accept discussion of the finer points.

Now, the bill seeks to overturn a 15-year-old system with millions of associates, in a context of financial turbulence, and to do so in a matter of weeks, so that all the money from the private pensions can be transferred to the state's social security before the end of the year. Not only does this negate the choice of millions of people who decided to stay in the private companies earlier this year, but it also looks rather suspicious.

Why the hurry? True, the assets of the AFJPs are taking heavy hits from the world's financial meltdown. But those things come and go. It's also true that the AFJPs haven't given their associates what they promised, and that they've engaged in some dubious practices. That's something to be settled with general audits. If you have a critical system that doesn't seem to work as intended, you don't decide to break it. You fix it and keep it going while you prepare the transition. The president can count on ample powers, a Congress controlled by overwhelming margins, and a social consensus that private pension funds aren't a good idea for most of us. I repeat, why the hurry? Cristina still has three years to go.

This administration has frustrated me time after time. I'm really tired of seeing great ideas given such bad names by the Kirchnerist gang. I'm fed up with having to agree with certain people... being forced to be on the same side as some who hold principles completely opposite from mine.

Yet I have no alternative. It's just plain common sense that the Kirchners want the private pensions' money to continue their incessant campaigning for their own permanence. They have no new ideas, no plan, no policies, nothing but a hunger for power that sometimes translates into seemingly brilliant developments, soon marred by corruption and negligence. Are we as a nation doomed to go from one rotten set of politicians to another?

25 years of democracy

Today it's been 25 years since the formal return of democracy in Argentina. On October 20, 1983 a democratically elected president, Raúl Alfonsín, took office after more than seven years of dictatorship and over half a century of erratic shifts between legal presidents and military usurpers.

My personal reckoning is that, although I was born exactly six months after the coup d'état, I have so far spent four fifths of my life under democratic rule. During that time I've voted quite a few times: three times for president (1999, 2003, 2007), four for governor (1995, 1999, 2003, 2007) and many more, at least once every two years to elect national and provincial legislators, and once every four years to elect city mayors and councilmembers, plus a couple of primaries. My generation is possibly the one that has voted the most times during the entire history of this country.

On the national level I've always either voted for the loser... or later regretted not voting for him. During all this time, this thing that gets called "the democratic process" hasn't offered me much satisfaction. But I don't want to despair. Never has Argentina experienced so many years (a quarter of a century!) of uninterrupted free elections on all the levels of government. We move on and crises hit us and sometimes we'd rather have everything blow apart, but in our heart of hearts we know and wish it will go on no matter what.

I have my reservations and my protests in store and readily available, but today I want to end this on a positive note. For 25 years now we've refused, as a people, to be deprived of our right to choose, and even when all our options look bad, we always have one more chance ahead of us. And that counts.

(El texto original de este post, en castellano, está disponible en Sin calma: 25 años de democracia.)

Argentina's economy: what now?

Everybody's talking about the financial crisis, so I thought I could chip in with my two cents..., especially seeing how our own Argentine government continues to deny we'll face serious trouble. In fact, President Cristina Kirchner has devoted a lot of time to deride, with barely concealed glee, the proponents of globalized laissez-faire capitalism (we must acknowledge that "kicking them while they're down" never felt better) and to defend the Kirchnerist achievement of decoupling Argentina from international market shocks, which would be terrific — if it were true.

First of all, not to despair: we are, as Cristina says, better prepared than ever in recent history for the shock. The problem started outside our borders (we have different problems) and we'll just have to slow down and wait, hoping that they don't spill into our own economy. For example: we need money to pay our foreign debt next year (and it's a lot of money — more than we owed before Néstor Kirchner renegotiated it, because we actually exchanged debt for more debt), and it'll be difficult to get money from abroad or to refinance the debt once again, with interest rates being so high and everybody clutching desperately to their remaining assets; but we still have a fiscal surplus and a trade surplus.

The peso-dollar rate jumped a bit, too, and that will help the trade surplus. There's just one problem — we're dependent on imports of all kinds, so a higher exchange rate means inflation. And one more problem: the Brazilian real has devalued as well, only much more brutally, so Brazil will be able to sell cheaper stuff to us, they won't be able to buy as much from us, and they'll be much more competitive with respect to third parties. Brazil has a long-standing state policy of industrialization; we don't. Brazil can cope with lower or higher exchange rates; we can't.

Yet more problems: our trade surplus feeds our fiscal surplus, via retenciones (export taxes), especially on soybean products. The price of soybeans (as with other commodities) has taken a deep dive, so that means less revenue from exports. China buys most of our soybeans, but China, like all countries around the globe, will start buying less of everything. Less revenue from exports means less available money to (for example) cover the costs of subsidizing inefficient public services and utilities, and funding public works. The national government has already left the inner country to its own devices, delaying or altogether abandoning plans to build homes, schools and such (Minister De Vido lies, as usual); now it's Buenos Aires's turn. Natural gas, drinking water, domestic power, buses, trains, the subway — they'll go up and up, while construction (the engine of Argentina's economic recovery since 2002) will come to a halt. Tourism and foreign investment will suffer as well; people in the US and Europe simply won't have money to spend on Third World countries like Argentina.

There's a political problem as well, because 2009 is a legislative election year, and the Kirchners doubtless had plans to pour money into cheap, quickly-unveiled public works all over the country, as Peronists are fond of doing; that just won't be possible in this scenario. Least of all if the opposition gets to revise the budget, which contains certain provisions deserving a "best fiction" award, plus the infamous "superpowers" that let the Chief of Cabinet move around huge chapters of the budget under the excuse of an economic emergency that supposedly ended years ago.

All in all, it looks like the next months will bring a "plateau" in Argentina's so far swift growth, and the Kirchnerist government will have to deal, for the first time ever, with a tight budget. It's easy to play when you have cards, as we say over here. The feeling of opportunities for true growth, for industrialization, for true redistribution of wealth, wasted and lost and now unlikely to return for a few years, is almost unbearable.

Musketeers of redistribution: Guillermo Moreno

This is the third and last installment of my translation of the Crítica Digital article titled Los mosqueteros de la redistribución ("The Musketeers of Redistribution"), which shows how the Kirchner administration has failed to redistribute income, which they claim as their main economic goal. This time it's about the worst offender in many respects, Secretary of Commerce Guillermo Moreno. This is what the article says about him:

In theory, his mission was to keep inflation from diluting the purchasing power of fixed-wage workers and retired citizens. The price agreements that he signed with companies at the beginning ceased being complied with long ago, except for [the statistics bureau] INDEC, where Moreno draws the lines of his private world.

Of course I've already written about INDEC and its ridiculous, obscenely faked figures of inflation, which the government continues to defend as true. Moreno is de facto leader of INDEC, which used to be a purely technical organization, fairly independent from the national government and thus trustable, until Néstor Kirchner decided he didn't like reality and let Moreno appoint his minions in places of power there. And that's not all.

[The manipulation of INDEC's figures] is a well-known story. Less known are [Moreno's] practices to favour concentrated companies, consolidating monopolic or oligopolic markets. For Moreno, competition is [a subject] for textbooks. He has always chosen commanding phone calls and verbal agreements with the major actors in each economic sector (cereal producers, mills, supermarkets, dairy companies, food companies, etc.) over transparent regulations that might discourage [the formation of] concentrated structures and encourage competition.

The removal of José Sbatella from the leadership of the National Commission for the Defense of Competition, key to the enforcement of anti-monopoly laws, is the culmination of that process. Sbatella, a professional with a long career, ruled against the Cablevisión-Multicanal merge, which two of Moreno's deputies in the Commission approved on the last day of Néstor Kirchner's term; Sbatella also set conditions for other multi-million [company] purchases in the food sector, which were not taken into account.

Guillermo Moreno is the kind of official that any sane administration would get rid of as quickly as possible, preferrably offering him (as compensation) a trip to some faraway land. Cristina Kirchner's unspoken excuse for keeping him is that everybody in the opposition and the major media is asking for Moreno's head, so firing the guy would be interpreted as a sign of weakness. I can understand that, but it also shows quite plainly that Cristina cares more for an appearance of overwhelming power and firm determination than for doing her job well despite her personal pride.

Moreno is a wrench in the most sensitive part of the economic machinery; the more he stays, the more difficult it will be to restore the credibility of the government regarding inflation and their goal of reducing poverty. Right now we don't know how many poor people there are in Argentina, but we know for sure they're many, many more than Cristina Kirchner and Guillermo Moreno would admit.

Musketeers of redistribution: Ricardo Jaime

Continuing with the translation of the Crítica Digital article titled Los mosqueteros de la redistribución ("The Musketeers of Redistribution"), about the subsidies granted by the Kirchner administration.

The second musketeer of redistribution is the Secretary of Transport, Ricardo Jaime. During the first semester of the year, subsidies to transportation (urban buses, trains and subways) reached AR$2.66bn, up by 71% compared to the same period last year.

Néstor and Cristina Kirchner (for all practical purposes, it's all one open-ended presidential term) have channeled billions into subsidies for public and private companies, with almost complete freedom to alter the budget and without oversight, so these figures are important. They usually say they need freedom to redistribute the income collected by the state so that it reaches the poor, but in fact all that money and all that freedom gives a few people a huge amount of power. Unsurprisingly, they've been using it to benefit the companies.

Subsidizing public passenger transportation is not an Argentine invention. And there's a consensus that such subsidious mostly benefit the lower-income rung of society. However, here we have doubtful criteria for assignment of subsidies, [which are granted,] in the case of bus companies, on the basis of sworn statements without control over cost structures, and in the case of trains and subways, over cost structures that are inflated by companies linked [to the main ones] as suppliers.

If you've travelled by train in Buenos Aires, it should be obvious to you that the companies that provide the service aren't pouring money into it. I mean, people have set fire to train stations out of anger, due to how bad the services are. By giving money to private companies and not overseeing their investments or forcing them to give a reasonably good service, the government is an accomplice of fraud. If the Secretary of Transportation can't make sure that people aren't treated like cattle in buses and trains that he (using our money) is paying for, then he should resign.

Aerolíneas Argentinas is a completely different matter. The poor do not generally travel by plane. The decission of re-nationalizing is debatable, but valid if weight is conceded to arguments such as regional integration or economic development. What is not trivial from the point of view of redistribution is who will take on the cost. Jaime said that, if it were up to him, he would pay nothing to the Spaniards of [the Marsans group]. And he says they gutted the company, while he looked the other way for five years…

This is especially relevant now that Aerolíneas is being really nationalized. It certainly looks as if we'll be buying back a company laden with debt and with a dismal record of service, and we'll be taking care of fixing it.

There is not a successful precedent of redistribution, either, in the case of LAFSA, the state company that in 2003 took care of the employees of former companies LAPA and DINAR. LAFSA never flied and today it is in the process of dissolving itself. But in the budget there are still funds set aside to pay the salaries of 99 employees, about 10 of them with wages above AR$10,000 per month.

Empty shells masquerading as actual companies for accounting purposes are so common in Argentine history that this surprises no-one. "Enterprise ethics" is an oxymoron in Argentina. This case is also interesting because the state invokes the welfare of the workers to justify the intervention in the finances of failed companies. We're hearing this kind of thing in the debate about Aerolíneas Argentinas as well. At the risk of being accused of insensitivity, I think the state should decide whether it wants a serious company that works and can sustain itself as a flagship airline, or a mockery of an airline whose main purpose is to produce money for its workers, some of who have never done any actual work besides showing up at union meetings.

I'll be posting the last installment of this series in a few days.

Musketeers of redistribution: Julio De Vido

Long time no write, sorry. I resume the translation of the Crítica Digital article titled Los mosqueteros de la redistribución ("The Musketeers of Redistribution"), which shows how the Kirchner administration isn't Robin Hood taking from the rich to give to the poor, as they arrogantly assert all the time.

… [T]he residential natural gas fee in Buenos Aires amounts to 30 cents per cubic metre. However, four million low-income households which have no access to the natural gas supply network are forced to buy [pressurized natural gas] containers at a cost of AR$1.70/m³, that is, almost six times more. Since the devaluation [of the peso, in early 2002] the residential gas fees have been frozen; but the price of the 10-kg gas container has climbed 275%, to an average of AR$30…. [Minister of Federal Planning Julio] De Vido authorized the deregulation of the gas container market, in which [the private company] Repsol YPF is dominant, and in exchange offered the so-called "social container", which is impossible to find at the price of AR$18 suggested by the State. Even if you could get that, the price (AR$1.20/m³) would be four times that of the network gas….

That is, the government forces the natural gas companies to sell their product at ridiculously low prices to a mostly middle-class public (and gives those companies a good excuse not to invest on surveying and expanding their network to less privileged areas) and allows Repsol YPF to charge six times more to the poor who aren't reached by the network, or who can't pay for a connection to it. (Until a few years ago my neighbourhood itself wasn't connected to the NG network — when it was our turn, we had to pay something in the order of AR$700 to get the pipes into our home; the equivalent price today must be three or four times as much.)

With more concern for fiscal health… in the last weeks Cristina's government started giving signs that it will unfreeze the utility fees. The astronomical growth of subsidies would threaten the fiscal balance if tax revenue were to falter in the future. … During the first semester [of 2008] the energy subsidies alone amounted to AR$8.2 billion, 295% than the same period [in 2007]. The announcement of hikes in the power fees will be followed by the slow thawing of residential natural gas fees.

The interesting thing is that the increases follow a segmented criterion: more [percent] increase for those who consume more. According to data provided by the power distribution companies, 7% of the high-income households account for 25% of the consumption. In the case of natural gas the concentration is similar.

If progressive [as in gradual?] adjustments had been applied two or three years ago, the State would have avoided a huge transference of wealth to the pockets of the less needy. Why wasn't it done before? De Vido used to explain it was not easy to identify the bills of the higher-income households, something acknowledged as possible only now.

More about this coming soon...

Income redistribution?

An example of why I don't consider Cristina Kirchner's to be a progressive government, and why the Kirchnerist mantra about their income redistribution goal is a big lie, and why I think it's OK if the middle- and upper-class heavier consumers are charged more for utilities: an article on Crítica Digital, titled Los mosqueteros de la redistribución ("The Musketeers of Redistribution" — Minister of Federal Planning and Infrastucture Julio De Vido, Secretary of Transportation Ricardo Jaime, and Secretary of Domestic Commerce Guillermo Moreno). I translate freely:

"This year, one million families with incomes in excess of AR$6,000 per month will receive a state subsidy of AR$750/month in the form of cheap power, domestic natural gas and fuel. This is the equivalent of five social plans [welfare payments] of AR$150/month, which are still received by little less than one million household heads under the extreme poverty line."

The minimum wage has been recently raised to AR$1,200, from an earlier figure of AR$980 established in July 2007.

"We have already written about the sales boom of natural gas-powered heaters for swimming pools, of the rage in 1,000-watt searchlights for the gardens of the most exclusive closed neighbourhoods, or the growth of the market of high-end diesel cars. Since nothing is free in economics, these subsidized prices are paid by the state, which this year will give away nearly AR$20 billion to compensate energy companies."

For comparison, the federal state collected taxes for about 17 billion in March and 24 billion in July, so this is like giving away a whole month of taxpayers' money. You could argue the subsidies go to the taxpayers, only they're not the same taxpayers. Most of those billions come from the IVA (our VAT), which is 21% over most goods and services (including food), so the poor pay a disproportionate amount of it, because everybody needs food, and most of what the poor buy is food. A smaller amount comes from a profit tax that leaves ample room for evasion, and that the government doesn't even try to collect. In fact, the government is about to exempt individuals with monthly wages over AR$3,300 (single) or AR$4,500 (married with children) from the profit tax, detracting from the total collection.

The government actually benefits from the "inflation tax". Every month it proudly exhibits huge and increasing tax collection figures, which is easy when your main source of revenue is tied to the prices of consumer goods. Coupled with INDEC's low inflation rates pulled from Guillermo Moreno's ass, it lets them believe or pretend that the country is growing fast, although that plainly happens only in nominal terms.

"From the total subsidies to the energy sector, the generous Argentine State will provide this year AR$9bn to subsidize the consumption of that higher-income social group. Incredibly, there are still well-off middle-class people who complain that the State "gives away" Jefes de Hogar welfare plans, which today are received by extremely poor households mostly headed by women. The 2008 budget for the Unemployed Heads of Household programme is only AR$1.8 billion."

Yes, many in the middle class are really angry that the poor "don't work, don't pay taxes and get money from the government", while "decent hard-working citizens" have to struggle to go on vacations or change the car every few years. I've heard borderline middle-class citizens demand that the government "sends those lazy bums to work", disregarding the fact that most of them are single women with small children, or young men who have no qualifications at all. This is the state's fault, but taking away their welfare payments is not a viable remedy.

"So as to dispell all doubt regarding the magnitude of the redistribution exercised by [Julio De Vido's] Ministry of Federal Planning: the nine billion pesos devoted to subsidize the consumption of well-off citizens are well above this year's budget for the Ministry of Social Development (AR$7.6bn); they're on par with the annual budget of the Ministry of Education (AR$9.3bn); and they represent 2.5 times the budget of the Ministry of Health (AR$3.5bn)."

This was just the first part of the article devoted to the "Musketeers of Redistribution", who (as you see) wield huge power over the lives and fortunes of Argentinians, and who are accountable only to the office of the President. If and when I have the time, I'll translate another part.

Power fees going up in Buenos Aires

The national government is giving the power companies a raise, through an increase in the power fees, that will fall on those who consume more than 650 kWh every two months. The increase will range from 10% to about 30% and, while Minister Julio De Vido says it'll only affect 24% of the population, others claim the middle class will be hit hard. And it seems a further raise is due next February.

The above is the news as reported everywhere in Argentina, and many people are genuinely concerned or outraged for the wrong reasons. Why? Well, despite the big headlines and the alarming newsflashes broadcast by the media, the raise is only for Buenos Aires, its metropolitan area and the city of La Plata only. Granted, that's 40% of the consumer base and Buenos Aires is the center of the universe for the porteño and for the "national" media, but you'd think they should at least qualify their statements.

I didn't say we hinterlanders* shouldn't be concerned or outraged. We have reason to be concerned since the same inflation and the companies' lack of investments that prompted the national government to grant the raise for the Buenos Aires area utility companies is having serious effects on those that supply the provinces; many had adjusted their fees up or were considering raises before this, and now it's only a matter of time before they align themselves with the capital's companies. Our own EPE (the Santa Fe Provincial Power Company) is checking its numbers right now.

* "El interior del país" ("the interior of the country") is what they call everything but Buenos Aires. That's how Argentina was structured to begin with: a colony with a big port to interface with the world, plus a broad expanse of land ripe for primary exploitation. It's customary and it doesn't sound alright. In fact, it reminds me of the ridiculous conception of Bender's robot apartment in Futurama — Bender sleeps standing up in a 1×1-metre room with no furniture, and the place where he lets Fry live is a huge room in itself... which Bender calls "the closet".

The reason for the outrage is, partly, the outrage of the porteños at this raise, because they've been enjoying ridiculously low prices for power, natural gas and public transportation at our expense since... well, ever. Time and time again I've written about the subsidized fuel for buses. As Rosario's city council is about to take the bus ticket to AR$1.60, a bus or subway ticket in Buenos Aires still costs about AR$1.

Well, as it turns out, the average residential power fee in Buenos Aires is vastly lower than the average in the rest of the country. No wonder the system has problems — you can't expect that the power grid won't collapse when you charge the lowest fee in the place with the largest and densest population, the highest per-capita income, and the highest concentration of installed top-notch air conditioners and refrigerators. According to the article in Crítica Digital, in the capital area a home that consumes 1,700 kWh will get a bill for about 88 pesos. Checking EPE's website and doing a quick calculation, we learn that the same amount of power, in Santa Fe, will punish the wasteful ways of the unfortunate consumer with a bill for 194 pesos. (The guy who writes the Crítica article obviously has math issues. He reports that fees in Buenos Aires are "194% cheaper" than in Santa Fe. Things can't be more than 100% less anything, unless you allow for negative values. Back in 2002 journalists noted that the dollar-peso parity had gone from 1 to a rate of almost 4 pesos per dollar, and reported that the peso had therefore "devalued by 400%". I recall only one news source giving the correct figure of 75%.)

Why did the porteños get this lucky all this time? Well, first of all, no-one likes being charged more, and when you have a metropolitan area with 12 million people surrounding the government seat, you don't want to make them angry. Especially when outside the capital proper you have several huge concentric rings of increasingly impoverished areas. If you control the money, you can use it to favour those near you, while the rest of the country gets indebted. Second, if you measure inflation only in the metropolitan area, it's in your best interest (image-wise and in the short term, i.e. the Argentine way) to concentrate your anti-inflation tactics there and leave "the interior" to its own devices. When the system starts to buckle under pressure (because you subsidize the demand but do not force the companies to invest and increase the offer), you deny it for as long as you can. And then you do something. You can imagine how close to the brink we've come if you consider the government is taking this step now, after the president's image has plunged and with a cooling economy on the horizon.

So, porteños and platenses, welcome to the rest of the country. Don't complain; you're still getting lucky.

March of the penguins, part 2: Two down and counting

Things are moving in the government of Cristina Fernández de Kirchner. Although the Scourge of Statisticians Guillermo Moreno hasn't been removed (yet?), Secretary of Agriculture Javier de Urquiza had to go, and today the unthinkable happened: Chief of Cabinet Alberto Fernández has resigned. De Urquiza was replaced by Carlos Cheppi, formerly head of INTA (the National Agricultural Technology Institute). Fernández's place will be filled by Sergio Massa, up to now mayor of Tigre, Buenos Aires, who led ANSES (the National Social Security Administration) back in 2002. On inquiry, Massa said he'll be there to serve as "the President's spare tire". What personality.

Alberto Fernández, the man I once called "quite possibly the most aggressively ignorant and intolerant minister Argentina has ever had" and "that filthy rat", has been with us for a long time; when Cristina Kirchner was elected he was one of the many things left over from Néstor's government she should've thrown away as quickly as possible, and didn't. As both presidents' mouthpiece (the official spokesman for the Presidency was merely decorative), Alberto was in charge of implementing the policy of constant derision of the opposition and the media that made Néstor Kirchner well-known as a "strong and confrontational leader" — which he was, until he became simply a bully. But Fernández started to fade together with the Kirchners' popularity ratings, and he just wasn't himself since the long farm tax crisis began, during which he conducted unsuccessful meetings with the farming leaders. Rumours of his resignation had popped up every now and then since April or May.

This government defends its own members more than it cares for its own sustainability, its image, or its results. Fernández should've been expelled when he was the most aggressive and the most unpleasant in the eyes of public opinion; most people would've liked his shrill voice to be silenced, and the government would've scored points; now his resignation won't serve any real purpose. But hey, one less Fernández can't be a bad thing altogether.

Some recent pearls of wisdom from Alberto Fernández:

• In May 2007, as inflation grew beyond the obfuscation powers of Guillermo Moreno's INDEC: "The opposition candidates are dealing irresponsibly with the issue of inflation… They're trying to create inflationary expectations in order to ruin Argentinians' lives."
• In August: "[After Néstor Kirchner's four year term] we are standing at the gates of paradise."
• In September: "There's no inflation in Argentina."
• After the 2007 presidential election, which Cristina won in the countryside (!) and lost in the big cities (Buenos Aires, Córdoba, Rosario): "I ask porteños to stop voting and thinking as if they were an island."
  

They say Alberto is ill and with high fever right now, possibly because of stress. We don't want that. Get well, Alberto! And then get away. Buh-bye!

March of the penguins

It seems the first casualty of the Kirchners' defeat in the Senate won't be a senator but one of the most revolting elements in the government, Secretary of Domestic Commerce Guillermo Moreno. So say some people. But the news channels disagree: was it just a rumour, or will Moreno leave after all?

Does he stay or does he go? Same place, almost the same time.

Moreno is a thug. Just as Néstor Kirchner is the de facto president despite Cristina's formal title, Moreno de facto handles microeconomic policies (or what passes for that) as if the Minister of Economy, Carlos Fernández, did not exist. (I've only seen or heard this Fernández guy speak twice or three times on TV.) He deals with "price fixing agreements" (Kirchnerspeak for price controls) and, through his mafioso acquaintances, manages INDEC, the census bureau that protects us from the harsh reality of inflation by fudging the rates every month.

Moreno was one of the leaders of the mob that drove a cacerolazo away from the presidential residence last month. On Monday afternoon, a couple of hours before the press conference where Cristina Kirchner announced the nationalization of Aerolíneas Argentinas (and its massive debt), his mob at INDEC attacked the office of the opposition union ATE, whose members (also INDEC employees) have been protesting the Kirchnerist tampering of the inflation rate since it began. They threatened the employees and, after they escaped, trashed the office. The authorities did nothing. The police arrived late.

Moreno is just an extreme example of the characters that populate Kirchner's camarilla, and of his way of doing things. Most of his (and Cristina's) top officials are criminals in some way or another — they simply don't make it so clear.

Congress making history — for good or bad

Another round in the government-vs.-farmers fight: last night the relevant committee in the lower house of Congress wrapped up a package of two different proposals to be debated by the whole Chamber of Deputies. One of them is a joint proposal of the opposition, which, after miraculously reaching an agreement, narrowed it down to "Let's suspend the President's bill for a while and see what we can do." This one was the most predictable, of course. It's in the minority, but it's quite a large minority.

There's a proposal championed by dissident Peronist, and former Buenos Aires Province governor, Felipe Solá, plus some other like him and many of the so-called Radicales K, i.e. former members of the Radical Civic Union. It's a compromise solution that maintains the mobile tax exports but decreases the amounts. If I got it correctly, this proposal doesn't count — the committee will only issue two, one for the minority and one for the majority.

The majority proposal is that of the Kirchnerists. What it basically says is "OK, we'll give you greedy farmers more subsidies, and if you ask for it using complicated forms we'll give you back some of the money we'll be unlawfully extracting from you in the first place." And then it explicitly says: "The President still has the right to do as she pleases with export taxes, no matter what the Constitution says, so all of the above is a joke."

The Kirchnerists say they have the votes it takes to pass the law — there's still some room for doubt, but wills can be bought, and they will. Needless to say, as soon as the law is passed the farmers will go back to the roads.

In the meantime, seeing how his own party turned to internal discussion (some legislators were actually thinking for themselves!), Néstor Kirchner has escalated his denunciations and threats. I won't be quoting him anymore, since it's sickening and pointless. The guy is clearly paranoid and very dangerous; in any normal country his own party would be shunning him (if only for political convenience), but Argentina being what it is, we'll have to wait until next year's elections to get rid of his influence.

This is all coming undone fast. Vice-president Julio Cobos hasn't spoken to Cristina in two weeks, since he started showing the common sense that seems to genetically absent in the Kirchners, and now even the ministers and senators tell him to shut up, which he says he won't. Cristina Kirchner seems unable to stop doing inflammatory speeches, but she can no longer get out of the safety zone. Kirchnerist shock troop commander Luis D'Elía went a bit far on his violent rants and was told to shut up and go abroad to preach his hypocritical "Revenge of the Poor" sermon, but the rest of the Kirchnerist mob is mobilized and waiting. Hebe de Bonafini was accused for inciting the take of official broadcasting media and asking for the farmers to be removed "with tear gas and sticks". Some politicians we saw as sensible, more-or-less honest representatives of the people have shown themselves as idiots and cowards at the very least, or simply as well-paid handmaids of the Kirchners.

It's painful process we're going through these days. The country is divided, and some of the worst elements in our society are working hard to widen the rifts. We've always had inept politicians, corrupt governments, economic uncertainty, but it's been long time since we had such violent popular leaders, such senseless verbal rage being poured on us without restraint. I'm optimistic, only in the sense I think it will all work out in the end. But how much time can we afford to lose?

The export tax: debate and circus

There are a lot of things to report about the the government vs. the farmers and the legislative handling of that infamous Resolución 125 (Bill No. 125 of the Executive Branch) that imposed mobile export taxes on soybeans. So many things, in fact, that I've been unable to summarize it these days. You simply can't stay on top of it all.

In short — No. 125 is being debated at the Chamber of Deputies (the lower house), although so far it's been more like a disordered assembly than a true discussion among lawmakers. Clearly as a dilatory measure, Kirchnerism staged an open meeting, where everyone who wished to do so could get in and listen. Insignificant organizations representing minuscule groups of interest demanded to be heard one after another, and the audience applauded or booed. In the meantime, different groups of politicians were lobbied or pressured in different directions, Néstor Kirchner tried to re-inforce his hateful black-and-white view of the issue, the president spoke here and there, the vice-president was rebuked and praised for his meeting with several opposition governors, and finally came... the tents.

First the farmer leader Alfredo De Angeli announced they were setting up a "green tent" on the square before Congress to mark their position. The Kirchnerists reacted quickly and set up several tents of their own. The government of Buenos Aires City ordered them to be taken down, but the Kirchnerist mob insulted the official in charge and refused to acknowledge the authority of the city government or its laws. The Federal Police was asked to intervene, but since it responds to orders of the national government, nothing happened. Yes, you got that right — the City of Buenos Aires has no police force of its own, and the police it's got simply won't enforce the law if the perpetrators are Kirchnerist militants. The government of Buenos Aires filed an accusation (the tents have no security measures and are invading public space without a permit) but a judge, prompted by a Kirchnerist deputy, granted them immunity, the reasoning being that once the tents are installed, the police would have to force the people out and that would be worse than letting them stay. Glory be to fait accompli!

There are now six Kirchnerist tents before Congress, with wooden floors, electric power and heating, plus pamphlets and plasma TV sets. The farmers finally set up their own, and the MAS (a socialist group) brought another one, favouring neither the government nor the farmers. The farmers also hired a giant inflatable bull, which was promptly named "Alfredito", while the Kirchnerists erected an inflatable penguin called "Néstor" (symbol of their leader) and supplied several of their pamphlet-handling militants with egg-shaped costumes. They're considering to bring in a mechanical bull as well. This sounds like a circus, and in a sense it is. Once the entertainment is over, however, no-one knows what might happen.

The government party would have enough legislators on both Houses to turn the presidential bill into law, but only if they were to align with the partisan line dictated by Néstor Kirchner. That won't happen. Most Deputies have had to accept that the bill won't pass unchanged, that they're going to have to concede some things. At least 30 and possibly even 40 Peronist Deputies are going to vote partially or totally against the bill, either because they know it's wrong as it is, or because their constituencies won't forgive them if they submit to Néstor K's wishes. (In fact, unless a miracle erases people's memories or typical Argentine political short-sightedness prevails, it's likely that Kirchnerism will suffer a terrible blow in the legislative elections next year. Some formerly popular politicians are already unable to walk the streets of their home towns without bodyguards.)

Many non-Peronist allies of K are unsure what to do or have already turned their backs on Kirchner, disturbed by his violent discourse and his wild accusations of widespread conspiracy against his wife the nominal president. The opposition is, as always, scattered, but they're converging on a couple of projects regarding the export taxes.

The farmers say that if Congress turns the bill into law without fundamental changes, they'll go back to the strike and take the roads again. Kirchner has told his fellow party members to raise their hands and pass the law exactly as it is. The need to find some middle ground and some compromise settlement is obvious and should be (for savvy politicians) a simple matter of time. But this is Argentina after all...

One step forward, two steps back

After almost 100 days of doing nothing but fueling the rage of the farmers and a good part of the general public (including many of her voters), President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner took note of the cacerolazo and reluctantly sent her mobile tax exports bill to Congress.

Never one to aspire to perfection, though, she let her husband go on with today's rally at Plaza de Mayo, which was transmitted on Cadena Nacional (i.e. forcefully overriding the regular schedule of all air TV channels to broadcast her speech). The rally was formally an occasion for all Argentinians to hear the President speak live on the current issues of prime importance for the country, but as expected, and as usual, it was merely a distasteful partisan meeting — thousands of public employees and unionized workers forced to attend, plus thousands of "social movements" who herded their militants to applaud Cristina.

Once before the crowd, la Presidenta took again on her Evita voice (which failed her a couple of times) and proceeded to insult the leaders of the agricultural organizations and to accuse those who protested against her government of being undemocratic and disrespectful of the popular majority. Her thesis (we've heard several times recently) is that democracy consists of voting every four years and then either quietly tolerating the decision of the majority, or form a new political party and compete when time is due. That is, all channels of feedback and criticism between the people and their government (except the ballot box) are to be suppressed: public opinion shouldn't be allowed to express itself through the media or through demonstrations and protests. Criticism on TV or the papers means big media corporations trying to destabilize the government. Banging pots and pans in the streets means inciting a coup. The spectacle of thousands of people who despair at the lack of action of their supposed representatives, taking to the streets on a freezing night with their kids to make some noise, to try to reach the consciousness of the ruler, doesn't mean anything but a threat to democracy.

That's the Kirchners' message, the subtext of most of their speeches. Every time Néstor and Cristina have taken one discursive step forward to speak of free speech or freedom of the press, they've proceeded to immediately take two steps back, treating their critics as enemies. So far it's been the media groups and some specific individuals and organizations. Today, it was the people as a whole.

Yesterday, when I heard Cristina's vow to let Congress discuss the tax bill that caused this whole mess in the first place, I was briefly glad about it. But again she'd taken those two steps back. The bill, they explained, deals with a matter of export tariffs and is under the jurisdiction of the Executive, i.e. it's not really a tax. As such, what Cristina sent to Congress was a closed package that can't be opened. It can only be approved or rejected as a whole. If approved, the conflict will be renewed. If rejected, we must assume, Cristina can ignore it, and given her record, it's quite possible that she would. The political costs might be extremely high for her and for everyone in her party. But the Kirchners have already shown us that they care for nothing. They're like blind bulls racing through a china store.

Cacerolazo, and then?

I had a tiring, satisfactory long weekend. Friday night, Marisa and I went to see a series of five episodes filmed by a local producer. On Saturday, I attended the unveiling of Che Guevara's statue (Marisa stayed home because she wasn't feeling well). Sunday was Father's Day, so we went to my place to have lunch with my parents, then we left for a recital that served as the closing for Guevara's 80th birthday celebrations, and after that, we marched on to Marisa's folks' home to have dinner with her parents and the families of her brother and one of her cousins. Monday morning, we woke up early to do an architectonic photo tour downtown; right after noon I left for a friend's house to have an asado.

I was still there when, at 5:30 PM, I received a mass SMS calling people to turn off the lights for 15 minutes at 8 PM and then start a cacerolazo against the government. I didn't pay attention to it. I was too tired to think of protesting anything, I was stuffed full and it was cold. Besides, I didn't think anybody would attend. I got back home at around 7 PM, and one hour later I was proven terribly wrong.

I was exhilarated. On edge. Finally! I only wished I could've been there. People were banging pots and pans or honking their horns or simply out on the streets singing or waving flags, disorganized but not incoherent. Thousands (some say 10,000, some say 40,000 or more) in Rosario around the Flag Memorial, many thousands also in several parts of Córdoba City, thousands in Buenos Aires near the Obelisk and also in Olivos, in front of the presidential residence, where the previous night a small group of demonstrators had been forced to leave by a group of government-paid thugs. And in La Plata, Posadas, Catamarca, Santa Cruz, San Rafael and Mendoza City, Chaco, in the larger cities and the towns of the deep countryside and even the places dominated by Kirchnerist administrations. Some were asking for the President to leave; most demanded that she act — do what must be done to put the country back on track, and send the First Gentleman back to where he belongs.

The hardcore Kirchnerists are in the latest stages of paranoia and denial, seeing coups and destabilization and conspiracies everywhere. Luis D'Elía even called people to take up arms in defence of the government. But the rest of the K people are cautiously stepping back from the mad leader.

Yesterday, vice-president Julio Cobos asked for Congress to intervene and discuss, exactly what should've been done to begin with, and just the kind of consensus-based, non-coercive process Néstor K abhors. Several loyal governors suddenly announced they wouldn't attend the government rally planned for Wednesday at Plaza de Mayo in Buenos Aires. Many long-time Peronists showed their disgust for D'Elía's manners. The K Radicals supported their leader, the vice-president. Here in Santa Fe, governor Hermes Binner put it succintly: "This way of governing is coming to an end."

Today the President broadcast one more of her venom-filled speeches, comparing the downfall of Perón in 1955 to what is supposedly being done to her..., and then, she said that, just to please the ungrateful and the ever-discontent and show her respect for the law, she would submit the export taxes to the approval of Congress. It took her 45 minutes of badly doctored speech to acknowledge that she'd been forced to take a step back.

Now Kirchnerism has an automatic majority in Congress. But it's not the monolithic front it used to be. Even if the retenciones pass the legislative filter, it will cost (we hope) several politicians their post in the near future. You'll have to think for yourself and decide, ladies and gentlemen — and then face the consequences when you go back home to your constituencies asking for their vote.

I want to believe

Cristina, you are a genius! You just sent those coup-inciting filthy rich farmers packing, and you unveiled a master plan that will show Argentinians the extent of your generosity, vowing to put those billions of dollars of tax exports to use on the things the poor and the struggling working class need — roads, public hospitals, unexpensive housing. If only I could believe you!

As I write this, I've just finished hearing President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner's speech on the national broadcasting signal (Cadena Nacional) which she had used only once before. I'm posting it now, on the day after the speech, because I just posted something else, something personal about my weekend, something of no importance.

I must say this — Cristina showed that she's not beyond reflection and change, and everybody took note of that. That that simple fact is a huge relief shows clearly how low our political culture has gone. The President, in the most contorted fashion, acknowledged that the government made a mistake, and asked for forgiveness to anyone she might have offended. I bet several million of my compatriots had never dreamed they'd hear such words coming from a Kirchner.

Now for the real content of the speech, things aren't so bright. Before Cristina began, the official spokesman read aloud a decree that will be published tomorrow, creating a "Social Redistribution Programme", which will be funded by the mobile tax exports on soybean whenever they climb above the 35% mark, and will be in charge of building public healthcare centers, roads and "popular homes". The Programme will be "decentralized", said the Prez; the national government will leave it to the provinces and municipalities to implement what they need. So far, so good.

Now, the Kirchners have been doing this kind of "federal decentralization" for years — it works by giving money to politically obedient governors and denying it to provinces ruled by the opposition (opposition doesn't mean just a different party — anyone who disobeys is opposition). There's no sign that this time it will be different. The Programme's funds will be administered mainly by Federal Planning Minister Julio De Vido, who has the power to do whatever he wants with great chunks of the budget.

At no time during her 30-minute speech did the President explain why this plan is presented to the public now and not before, or why the extra couple of billions that might be collected from farmers couldn't be replaced by the US$4 billion they're spending on a bullet train for the rich. It's obvious the Programme was made up in the last few days, and we Argentinians know perfectly well that such great plans never come to fruition, mainly because middlemen divert (steal) the funds.

Cristina said we're not in a crisis anymore, which is right, I believe. If so, however, our useless, yes-people-filled Congress should reclaim its duty to manage the national budget, which they gave away (in violation of the Constitution) years ago because we were in an emergency. The emergency is over, right?

Moreover, the need for a paternalist, strong-handed government is over as well. We don't need an Evita lookalike implementing her version of a Great Leap Forward. We need a federal state that lets the provinces have their own money and manage it, not granting them leftovers from an unconstitutional tax. Only allied governors and government-addicted mayors were invited to Cristina's speech, to nod and smile and applaud. No room was allowed for dissent. The Kirchners firmly believe they're the only ones who know how to run the country, and they refuse to hear, let alone follow, other people's opinions.

Cristina did one thing right: she noted that it all began because a certain specific group of people, who on average are doing quite well compared to the average, refused to accept that the state took away part of their profits (again). Of course, we all knew that, and it's a testimony of the profound ignorance of the Kirchners that they turned a focalized reaction against tax collection into a divisive countrywide revolt that brought down their image and caused huge losses of money and time for everyone.

Here are links to the coverage of the speech, in Spanish:

• El Gobierno anunció que las retenciones móviles financiarán un plan social (La Nación)
• Cristina anunció un plan social con fondos de las retenciones (Clarín)
• La presidenta anunció un plan social solventado con las retenciones móviles (La Capital)
• Cristina "descentralizó" la distribución de las retenciones y pidió perdón (Rosario3)
• "El error fue la ingenuidad de tocar la renta extraordinaria de un sector" (Crítica Digital)
• and this article published this morning, which follows Cristina's speech so closely that it's obvious it was leaked to the most government-friendly newspaper: ¿Podría pasar? (Página/12)
  

May 25 in Rosario and Cristina Kirchner: Complain, deny, repeat

I was speaking, yesterday, of the meeting called by the agricultural organizations in Rosario last Sunday, May 25, to protest the export taxes and the government's handling of agriculture and cattle farming (from now on "the meeting of the campo"). In passing I mentioned the media coverage.

It appears that hundreds of reporters and photojournalists came to Rosario, and the meeting was, of course, in the cover of every newspaper the next day. The coverage itself was varied. La Nación, predictably, gave a lot of space to old-fashioned "common man in the street" personal testimonies, and romanticized the whole thing as an epic march of the dignified rural middle class. Both La Nación and Clarín supplied a lot of video and audio, and gloated over the defeat of the government strategy. Página/12, also predictably, attacked the meeting with irony, noting how some people who protest against taxes came to Rosario flying their own airplanes or driving brand-new SUVs.

Página also did another thing, which to me was an echo of the Kirchnerist model — denial and repetition. The online edition devoted more than 50% of its content to reposting old op-ed pieces dating from the beginning of the government-vs.-campo crisis. Some were brilliant, valuable arguments for the export taxes; some were sectarian, sentimental, others cold and technical; but they were all old. Pertinent, maybe, but old. Repeated. Why republish them?

That curious fact immediately reminded me of the Kirchnerist government's insistence on certain issues to the exclusion of a reality that's biting them in the nose — the grown-up equivalent of a child closing her eyes, covering her ears and shouting "la la la I can't hear you". Kirchner (Cristina/Néstor) doesn't want to see reality. That's why Cristina had thousands of people brought to her speech in Salta, and for that audience she reveled on her husband's administration's socioeconomic achievements. This time she kept it short. She's been known to go at it for an hour. Néstor Kirchner himself never tired of congratulating himself about the economy on every single speech he gave. Repetition, noise, a mantra of figures of poverty, GDP, employment, exports, industrial production. Nonsense. Even the true parts.

Why nonsense? Argentina is doing badly on many respects. It's much, much better than six years ago, but it's not better than 15 years ago. There are problems. When the people insist that there are problems, the president can't tell them to shut up. She can't tell them to value what they've got and thank their stars they have such a good, progressive, popular government, and act offended when some dare complain about an issue. A government is not to the people what a a father is to his son — we're all adults here. The government additionally has the responsibility of keeping the high moral ground.

Of course, when a crypto-fascist movement like Peronism is in power, citizens are treated like children. Though Kirchnerism doesn't really have a cult of personality, the purposefully crafted mannerisms Cristina employs to resemble Evita Perón are rather obvious.

Now, a good father may occasionally display frustration or sadness when his children don't appreciate his efforts, but eventually he'll stop whining and do what must be done. Cristina Kirchner isn't even up to that role. She has complained about her children's lack of love for what she did for them, she has repeated ad nauseam that she's doing her best and wants to be everyone's good mother (if only us children would obey!), she's yelled at us a little, and after that, sensing no response, she has frozen. She doesn't know what to do next. She's surrounded by powerful, violent, resentful people, and she knows she has to take them into account. They put her where she is now, after all. One of them even sleeps with her (we presume) and presides over her political party. What to do? Cristina doesn't know.

Rosario after the general strike

After Thursday's general strike, Rosario's taxi drivers met with the authorities and then decided to work normally during the weekend (the city will be full of visitors, so they can't lose that money) and suspend the night service starting on Monday. Political characters of various stripes latched onto the horrible murder that triggered this and took advantage of it to speak ill of the provincial and municipal governments.

While the initial response of the taxi union was understandable, the rest immediately seemed to me to be staged for political purposes. Yesterday evening, after the tense meeting with the authorities, the head of CGT Rosario, Néstor Ferrazza, was seen at Agustín Rossi's campaign launch meeting for the presidency of the Santa Fe Justicialist Party. It was Ferrazza who decreed the general strike with less than two hours notice, and it's Rossi who's been more active criticizing the new Socialist administration since his party lost the election here.

This kind of strike had been unheard of for years. Later Ferrazza called it "a Rosariazo against insecurity", which for people with some knowledge of history seems not only a exaggeration, but really dangerous speech. The Rosariazo was a series of protests against unpopular measures of the dictatorial government of Juan Carlos Onganía, during 1969, at a time when the whole country was in unrest. There were many wounded and dead, and the city turned into hell, because the government used as much violence as it could. Comparing it with last Thursday's strike is an insult. We the common citizens suffered great inconvenience, but the government tried to solve the situation with words. Everybody, except the ones blocking the streets, behaved democratically and as calmly as the awful situation allowed.

What's it about "insecurity"? After five years of economic growth at unprecedented rates conducted by a government that claims income redistribution as its main goal, poverty is still about 30% and income inequality is about the same as in the peak of the last crisis, while nothing has been done to improve education or to bring back the dream of upward social mobility. And then these filthy low-grade politicians disguised as speakers for the working class demand that insecurity be solved by a local government with no power to affect national policies, dictated by a president who's more concerned about how many people applaud her awful, divisive speeches than anything else.

Tomorrow's 198th anniversary of the creation of the first national government. The four agricultural organizations are going to have a mass gathering here in Rosario, at the Flag Memorial, while Cristina Kirchner will be speaking in Salta, far north, in a place where she doesn't have to fear opposition and where her paid supporters will be carried in large numbers. If all goes well, I'll be here taking pictures and contributing with my presence.