The criticisms of the measures that the government will implement to curb the escalation in retail prices which in April marked an increase of 8.4% came from all over the opposition and, in the case of the former president Maurizio Macri, led him to claim it Alberto Fernández and Sergio Massa “never wanted to lower inflation”.
But among all the opposition voices that accompanied the criticisms of the former president, there was one in particular it has drawn attention for being dissonant and for coming from its own rankpolitics of st. It was that of the economist Lucas Llach.
Llach, deputy of the central bank between 2015 and 2018 chose replies to the former president from his Twitter account to refute some of his claims, outlined in the letter that Mauricio Macri posted on Facebook on Sunday.
In that letter, Macri mainly criticized the issuance policy of the BCRA, aimed at “financing the state” and asked for “the public accounts to be in order”.
“The only thing you need is order. Order the public accounts and that the Central Bank never prints banknotes to finance the state, For example. This is what the South American countries have done, which also suffered from hyperinflation like us and today have less inflation in a year than we do in a month, “wrote the former president in his letter.
Faced with such affirmations, Llach -who detached Federico Sturzenegger in the monetary institution while he lasted in the government of Marcio- came out to partially refute that message.
“President, with all due respect: In those countries that have lowered inflation, central bankers are not under pressure either to lower interest rates,” he launched.
And he pointed out, in a sharp self-criticism: “Probably Error of the BCRA board of directors in not resigningthinking it was better hide everything,” the economist wrote on Twitter.
The “28D” of economics in the time of Mauricio Macri
The reference to the “tightening” made by Llach indicated an emblematic date in the economic management of the Macri government: December 28, 2017, when Sturzenegger announced a change in the inflation targets accompanied by various executive officials. A day on which Llach has repeatedly been critical of the mistakes that he believes the Macrist government has made.
This announcement has been considered by the market as a surrender of the Central before the political powerand resulted in a loss of confidence in the monetary institution authorities which has never been recovered.
In fact, in the series of replies that Llach gave to those who responded to his criticisms of Macri’s letter, the economist explored the “collective” mea culpa.
“I put 28 times what was the 28D (the subordination of the BCRA to political power). a collective mistake, of which I was a part. we all make mistakes“Llach wrote.
And further down he clarified the foundation of his response to Macri’s statements: “The more general point I wanted to make: it is not just a question of the ‘financial’ autonomy of the BCRA (that is, it does not finance the treasury) but of the ‘functional’: the Executive does not intervene in its decisions“.
The economist then brought his criticisms to the technical level of his questions, but the word “squeeze” was left floating out of possible political anger.
Source: Clarin
