In the Secretariat of Commerce, the book on the bedside table that Matías Tombolini read attracts attention, The era of surveillance capitalism by Shoshana Zuboff, Professor Emeritus at Harvard Business School, who refers, among other things, to unequal relationship between consumers and companies.A sign of things to come?

There they clarify that the secretary Tombolini, economist, professor at UBA, is in favor of surveillance to prevent abuse. In his view, Argentina, due to inflation, has deeply rooted the hedging behavior culture. Both businessmen at the time of pricing and consumers themselves.

In recent days Tombolini articulated with Augusto Costa, Buenos Aires Minister of Production, the Care Prices program which has just been relaunched. There will be an inspection and they are working with consumer associations and municipalities in digital and physical checks, They claim to have found differences between the price of the gondola and the amount actually invoiced. Also in Now 12, limited to those made in Argentina, and which usually apply to imported ones. They released 450 violations.

Today a tripartite control over the import regime will be announced “which has nothing to do with the ban,” they say. The transition from automatic to non-automatic licensing is justified by necessity “avoid billing abuse” in the country of dollar scarcity.

They will allow import based on the economic capacity of the importer. The mechanism begins with the importer cuit enabling the authorization granted by the Central Bank for access to dollars. Of course there can be immediate access, reserved for some strategic inputs and some SMEs or a wait of 180 days. There will be traceability and they are very aware of who is who among the 24,000 cuit of importers.

With the renewal of careful pricing, the strategy is a basket with reference products. Is back red sachet of La Serenissima, 9 de Oro and Don Satur biscuits, La Virginia and Cabrales coffee, Quilmes beer, Coca Cola, Arcor sweets. They also signed an agreement with Cartocor, also from Arcor, which leads the packaging to an adjustment of 2.5% in October and another 3.5% in November.

-What are they looking for with that smaller basket and some leading brands? He asked himself.

-The careful prices weigh 4.5 points in the consumer price index which eases the Indec. By entering the products that people consume, the goal is to increase the participation of the products that are in the program. The idea is that they come to represent 10 points.

As for meat, prices have remained calm in the last quarter. Partly due to increased livestock supply and declining Chinese demand. That being the case, exports have stopped competing with the domestic market and the careful cuts they are now cover 8,000 tons.

In Economics they say that the secretary is in a place where he has to deal with the consequences and not with the causes of inflation which they summarize in two words: macroeconomic imbalances. They blame the problem and the exchange rate gap.

“There is no magic, nor will there be a shock, to fight inflation. The path will be gradual and goes hand in hand with financial peace of mind.a ”, they say. And they boast that thanks to the soybean dollar it has calmed down to such an extent that financial dollars have a lower face value than they were two months ago, when Massa took office. It’s inside that interim inflation rose by 14%.

Regarding the apparel deal, which still continues to drive inflation, they defend themselves by pointing out that it is limited to 63 brands and 70 products within each brand. “We tried to give a signal in a very atomized sector to keep them for two months and then with a reasonable adjustment”, they say.

When consulted how parity and rates will affect inflation in the coming monthsadmit they add tension.

Another sign of what awaits us?