It can be called whatever one sees fit and waved during the campaign as it is waved, from place to place, but it will not cease to be what it is: a problem which in its very composition and size also expresses the weight of some even large and pressing problems.
If you prefer to put it another way, it turns out to be a ball of money that can no longer bear to be tossed forward.
Without further ado, it is the public debt in pesos that of jumping already in jumping staggering sum 24 trillion, maturing in full this year and five times the stock it was in 2020 when he assumed the current version of Kirchnerism. That is, a package that in just four years has grown by 18.3 trillion, that is, another enormity directly related to less controversial state management.
Festival of numbers and financial festival, here, disaggregated, $13.8 trillion corresponding to National Treasury debt and $10.5 trillion appearing in Central Bank liabilities.
Also, it clearly sounds like a heavy mortgage and reeks of policy deployment, about 80% of the $13.8 trillion in the National Treasury are one-year agreed bonds that are adjusted for inflation, by the official exchange rate. or from a mix of both.
In case you need to rivet it, we are talking about inflation skyrocketing to 100% and an official dollar lagging behind and living handcuffed to an unsustainable stock market. The result of what is already there anticipates it by the end of 2023 the debt will have practically doubled.
In the 10.5 billion that the BCRA receives, the unrivaled star is called Leliq, famous for a moment because in the 2019 campaign Alberto Fernández promised he would eliminate them and that he would allocate the excess money, in its entirety. to improve the assets of the retired.
Predictably, without a trace of the presidential promise, the Leliqs have continued on their way and are already singing 8.4 billion, 7.7 billion more than in 2019; they have an average annual return of 75% and expire every 28-30 days or renew every 28-30 days.
Direct consequence: the BCRA’s money also continues to grow indefinitely and most of the time it involves dealing with a bill of the order of a trillion pesos every month.
Another way of looking at legacy appears in its composition. Shortly before the return to power of Kirchnerism, debt in pesos represented 22% of the total package against 77.8% absorbed by foreign currency bonds. Now, the report sings 33.2% versus 66.8%, meaning it has achieved a turnaround equivalent to 10 percentage points in four years.
And do you know what happened? What happened was that Argentina hit rock bottom drowned by a lack of dollars, crushed by exchange rate pressure and unstoppable inflation. With the doors of international credit closed and without the possibility of taking advantage of the times of low interest rates, the country ended up in the arms of the IMF and with an onerous standby of US$57,000 million.
There is everything along the way, but even so it is difficult to find that virtuous link between domestic financing in pesos and economic independence that some specialists propose and the benefits, even presumed ones, of coupling state agencies and official banks to the objectives set by the Government.
A case that speaks of that and at the same time the opposite appears in the way in which an ANSeS fund created for the nationalization of the AFJP was squeezed to ensure the sustainability of the system and that of the pension assets.
As happened with the Central Bank, the Nation, with PAMI and the other savings banks managed not by chance by La Cámpora militants, the ever-present idea behind the move was, and is, that of transforming the strong public organizations in tools prisoners of the central power, useful for the most diverse purposes.
Managed by the ultra-Christian Fernanda Raverta, The ANSeS fund has government bonds worth 4.5 trillion pesos in its portfolio, of which 3.3 trillion are inflation-adjusted.
There is also $620,000 million invested in private company stocks and $250,000 million invested in “manufacturing and infrastructure projects,” according to agency reports. Simplified, the ANSeS nothing in silver.
The point is, if you like, that the 4,500 billion placed in public securities are renewed continuously or are replaced on expiry by others of equal value. Then they seem nailed down, available for the uses that the political power decides arbitrarily, starting, as we can see, with the financing of public expenditure.
An example of these days: the 17% increase announced on Friday for minimum retirements from March was already programmed and all that was left was to enter the number. And the bonus that accompanied the provision is another of those resources with an occasional format, which, as it appears, disappears without a trace in the permanent assets.
Finally, from this ANSeS rich in public bonds, the 5.6% loss in purchasing power suffered by pensioners in 2022 and the real fall of 4.3%, discounting inflation, which occurred in 2021. Pure adjustment, the income of one of the most deprived sectors of the population has already accumulated five consecutive months along the chasm.
Nothing to celebrate, however. And to see how much of the 17% announced by Sergio Massa eats up the cost of living in the first quarter.
Something similar happens with the connection between a special fund that operates in the PAMI of camper driver Luana Volnovich and the return on her investments, measured by the quality of health coverage for pensioners. The little that is known about investments bears the seal of Treasury Letters, therefore, and what is known about the services of the PAMI obvious.
Now, a couple of strong figures that together account for 26% of the state debt in pesos and are mobile and sensitive to economic ups and downs. With identical $2.4 trillion each, we’re talking about public and private banks and investments predictably placed in index-linked bonds, ie saver deposits that add up to $4.8 trillion.
Just to compare and interpret, the banks operate a bonus package similar to the one Raverta has available at the ANSeS.
Latest record in a strictly K series. Between 2021 and 2022, the National Treasury’s peso debt jumped from 6 trillion to 13.8 trillion. It doubled in just one year. And it is precisely in the year in which pension expenditure fell by 5.6% in real terms; 37.6% public investments; 47% contributions to the provinces and 11% economic subsidies.
In case you haven’t already noticed, there are a few such things in this story that, somewhat thoughtlessly, Together for Change calls the bomb.
Everyone knows and it is known here that when uncertainty, distrust and economic disorder abound, the risk is that this problem ends up in the foreign exchange market and the financial system.
And even more so if it has taken the form of a monumental silver mountain. Therefore, we urgently need a well-articulated plan, a recognized team and people with experience in public management.
Source: Clarin
