Sergio Massa usually tells his intimates that these are unforgettable days. Perhaps for the leap, also unforgettable, that yesterday the blue dollar reached its all-time record closing at 462 dollars, 20 pesos more than on Friday, and widening the gap with the official up to almost 110%. the maximum in eight months.
Over the past two weeks, blue has gone up $70. And although the specialists assure that we are not yet at the price of panic, it is brewing “a dangerous dynamic that can generate a disruptive scenario in the political arena”, warns the economist Martín Rapetti.
It is striking that Minister Massa, who has spent more than half of her life in the political arena with her whole world revolving around her, the only thing that occurred to him to say yesterday is: “It is in difficult battles that temperance is most evident”.
Fernando Henrique Cardoso taught it to rule is to explain and that is to fail.
Among other things, the economic crisis has aggravated domestic politics and no one in the ruling party is taking charge of the situation. Cristina is unaware, the President blame Kirchnerism to put a spanner in the works and Massa continues to quarrel with none other than the president of the BCRA, Miguel Pesce, who yesterday was at the Casa Rosada in the midst of the dollar’s soaring.
One of the causes of this situation is the drought which stole 21,000 million dollars according to the latest calculations and thus ignited one of the most sensitive variables in Argentina, the dollar, precisely in election time and with a very fragile government.
The acceleration of the crisis occurs less than two months after the closing of the lists and less than four of the PASO. This affects the activity not only because of a greater lack of dollars for imports, but with a slowdown in motorcycle and car sales and cracking price agreements.
“There is no trust. In this run, March inflation took an impact for a price like dollar that was behind. This also Massa returned from Washington without IMF dollars.”emphasized Sebastián Menescaldi of EcoGo.
By the way, this price shock was a campaign to start companies that used to dollarize profits and leave working capital in pesos and are now “dollarizing all they can.”
But what are the options that Massa has at hand? Rapetti insists that devaluing the official dollar at this moment would be very dangerous due to its impact on prices and complex from a political and social point of view. “I don’t see a controlled devaluation, it would be a pity due to the high social cost when the IMF is likely to finally frontload disbursements”.
Others suggest that the way out would be the development of an exchange rate, where the dollar or tourist card crosses a lane, from which it vanishes $600 million a month and spot it through another channel, taking care that it does not affect inflation. Menescaldi says their clients draw scenery by mail. If before they arrived in August, waiting for the outcome of the PASO, now they reduce it to June, when the candidates are known.
Massa took office in early August 2022 with the idea of putting the economy in order with a drop in inflation and running as a candidate. He is a very powerful minister and maintains his electoral aspirations but with poor economic results.
In Economy they see this crisis as a specific problem and say that next year that $21 billion will be recovered from the drought with producers sowing with one government and reaping with another. They also come from Vaca Muerta’s energy income. He will probably miss it.
As for the opposition, they oscillate between criticism of the government and the fear that the acceleration of the crisis will also speed up electoral times. They believe the government should do the “dirty work” and get through to December.
Source: Clarin
