As economic crisis builds, Argentine Economy Minister resigns.

[NewYorkExpress]

https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/argentina-economy-minister-guzman-resigns-crises-build-2022-07-02/

Argentina's economy minister Martin Guzman, the architect of a recent major debt deal with the International Monetary Fund (IMF), resigned on Saturday as deep splits emerged in the ruling coalition over how to handle mounting economic crises.

Guzman, a minister since late 2019 and a close ally of President Alberto Fernandez, posted a letter on Twitter announcing his decision, adding he maintained "confidence in my vision of the path Argentina should follow."


The center-left Peronist president is facing his lowest approval rating since taking office in 2019, with cracks in his coalition, inflation running above 60%, the peso currency under growing pressure and sovereign bonds at record lows.

Guzman, a moderate, had clashed with powerful Vice President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, a militant two-term former president, who has criticized his handling of the economy and called for greater spending to alleviate high poverty levels.


The resignation leaves the ministry leaderless just as Guzman was expected to travel to Europe to negotiate a $2 billion debt deal with the Paris Club of sovereign lenders. It also deals a blow to Fernandez's weakening power base.

[CumbrianLefty]

One of the richest countries in the world at the start of the 20th century.

[Meclazine for Israel]

If Sri Lanka and Argentina are faltering, there will be plenty more countries in the same economic position.

[PSOL]

One of the richest countries in the world at the start of the 20th century.

Yet most of the wealth went just to the rich areas of Buenos Aires or to British mining conglomerates. Outside of that, the monumental decline by the Peronists sidelining and ultimately suppressing anyone willing to enrich Argentina's population–and the junta suppressing both later while leading the country to ruin–doesn't help.

Thankfully the Peronists are heading out of office soon and a real social-democratic party could grow to be in power within the next decade, offering much more in real opportunities for Argentina to get out of its rut.

[Lexii, harbinger of chaos and sexual anarchy]

His replacement, former Buenos Aires Province Economy Minister (2011-2015) Silvina Batakis certainly looks like she's less qualified to handle Argentina's extremely complicated economic situation than Guzmán, and as shown by every economic indicator that's saying something, amd with a much weaker personality than her predecessor

But according to Alberto we should be fine eventually as, slightly paraphrasing, "the economy is growing so much, we're experiencing a growth crisis", as he saod a couple of days ago

[Lexii, harbinger of chaos and sexual anarchy]

One of the richest countries in the world at the start of the 20th century.

Thankfully the Peronists are heading out of office soon and a real social-democratic party could grow to be in power within the next decade, offering much more in real opportunities for Argentina to get out of its rut.

The non-kirchnerista center left has been in constant crisis, to the point of outright defeatism since at least 2018.
Most of the big names joined the two largest coalitions, a process
which only consolidated itself further after Lavagna's weaker than expected results.
The Buenos Aires City center left, which was united under the short lived Unen coalition, opted for big posts in Juntos por el Cambio, as shown by senator Martín Lousteau  and deputy for Buenos Aires Graciela Ocaña or in Todos as shown by the latter Deputy for Buenos Aires City  Pino Solanas.
 The same thing happened in Buenos Aires Province but on a smaller scale as the local independent center left has always been weaker than in the city, with Margarita Stolbizer getting a seat as a Deputy for the Province, in a much lower position in the ballot than what Solanas or Ocaña  got a few years earlier.

While some independenta and former kirchneristas that would've previously been considered center left like Randazzo took a hard change towards the right wing on security and social conservatism

The Socialist Party in Santa Fe is in its weakest position in several decades, as the Radicales have joined Cambiemos and left their historical partner alone

And in other provinces any new  successful center left parties are just peronista/kirchnerista offshoots strongly dependant on a small group of local politicians, as it's extremely hard to get  a seat in the smaller provinces, basically anywhere outsde of Buenos Aires, Cordoba, Santa Fe, and to a smaller degree Mendoza, Tucumán and Entre Ríos , due to the huge population disparities between provinces

The main trotskist coalition, FIT-U has gotten better reaults than in previous recent elections, but they're very far away from getting any real power, which they don't really want anyway

[Ⓐnarchy in the ☭☭☭P!]

Every time I get around to writing an update post on Argentina something crazy happens that changes everything.

When Guzmán resigned the USDT-Peso exchange collapsed from 240 to 280 in a day. Since American markets are closed today the volume has been pretty thin but prices seem to have settled somewhere between 250 and 270, and things could get worse if the bonds start getting clobbered tomorrow. Batakis seems to have been appointed solely to appease CFK, whose political plan right now is

1. Crash this economy with no survivors
2. Blame Fernández for everything
3. Lose 2023 election to someone that has to implement unpopular reforms
4.
5. Return to power in 2027 by blaming the last guy

Real economic conditions are far worse than they were in 2001, but the government is basically barely able to pay would-be rioters to sit around eating polenta. If there's a bond crisis or if they print so much to prevent a bond crisis that they kick the inflation into overdrive then that's all going to come crashing down real quick and there's no way Kirchner will be able to avoid the blowback.

[Ⓐnarchy in the ☭☭☭P!]

[official thread theme]

At the beginning of the week it seemed like there was a ghost of a chance that Batakis might be able to stem the bleeding as the blue dollar fell back down to 250. Then as expected when American markets opened Argentine bonds took an absolute hammering as the central bank blew its dollar reserves trying to keep the blue dollar exchange from blowing up. By the end of the week they were out of ammo and at the moment the blue dollar is sitting at 270 while the CCL used by businesses is already past 300 suggesting a severe liquidity crisis.

As previously mentioned most of the organizations and people with the ability to coordinate big national protests are bought off or have been picketing predictably more or less nonstop. Nevertheless the peso losing 20% of its value in a week provoked somewhat sizable (especially considering that it's the middle of winter) protests across the country.

https://twitter.com/agustinromm/status/1545874353551577088

The most notable protest was at the Pink House where at one point some libertarians actually tried scaling the walls, though they were held back by federal police.

https://twitter.com/agusantonetti/status/1545893675846094850

[Edu]

3. Lose 2023 election to someone that has to implement unpopular reforms
4.
5. Return to power in 2027 by blaming the last guy

Because we are in the worst timeline, I bet that something like this is actually going to happen (again!). We never learn.

[Ⓐnarchy in the ☭☭☭P!]

The Blue Dollar broke 300 pesos and the CCL is already well above that. The President blames greedy tourists. A long fall for what was once the strongest currency in the world:



"El Comercio Peru", 1919:

"Argentina is the pride of South America for many reasons, but above all because of its growing wealth. The Argentine peso has become the monetary unit with the highest value among all the countries in the world"

[Lexii, harbinger of chaos and sexual anarchy]

The Blue Dollar broke 300 pesos and the CCL is already well above that. The President blames greedy tourists. A long fall for what was once the strongest currency in the world:



"El Comercio Peru", 1919:

"Argentina is the pride of South America for many reasons, but above all because of its growing wealth. The Argentine peso has become the monetary unit with the highest value among all the countries in the world"

Tbf the current Peso has been the second most successful currency in Argentinean history. That counts as a partial success , riiiiiiiight?

[Lexii, harbinger of chaos and sexual anarchy]

All the major newspapers, even the ultra kirchnerista Pagina 12, are reporting that Economy Minister Batakis will likely be fired after less than one month in this post, and may be  replaced with Sergio Massa, the Chairman of Diputados, someone with no degree im Economics or almost any relevant experience other than being a mayor and head of the Social Security Agency 15 years ago, as a "superminister". That makes a lot of sense, right *goes cry in the corner*

And it's official: Batakis is out, and Massa will lesd a super-departament which includes the former first-level departments of Economy, Agriculture (once more Massa has no relevant experience on this field, the county he was mayor of is very clearly suburban) and Productive Development

[Edu]

Isn't Massa the one with the best polling image in the FDT? and they put him in a ministry that is in shambles in a country with an economy going to hell? lmao, ok, does this guy have a suicide fetish or something?

[Benjamin Frank]

One of the richest countries in the world at the start of the 20th century.

This is what happens when a nation embraces populism for 100+ years.

[alancia]

Isn't Massa the one with the best polling image in the FDT? and they put him in a ministry that is in shambles in a country with an economy going to hell? lmao, ok, does this guy have a suicide fetish or something?

I think Massa polls pretty bad actually, something like 70% dissaproval (Similar to Alberto, so...)

[CumbrianLefty]

One of the richest countries in the world at the start of the 20th century.

This is what happens when a nation embraces populism for 100+ years.

Hmmm, with the exception of Peron were most of the military regimes "populist"?

Alternating violently (often literally) between populism and anti-populism is maybe more accurate.

(and not much better)