In sight, again: Cristina Kirchner he is doing badly or very badly with the economy and his usually pretentious theories and conclusions, of the sort of economics and politics mixed with slogans, aren’t doing well either. A large part of this performance evidently appears in the coincidences between some of the large numbers that marked his second presidency, the one that ended in 2015, and those we have now.
To begin with, from time to time a Central Bank appears with net reserves, let’s say available, in red. According to private studies, at the end of 2015 BCRA accounts recorded at least $1.3 billion below zerosimilar or very similar to the approximately 1,750 million dollars which today would also bear the minus sign.
In an economy heavily dependent on foreign goods and inputs that are not produced here, such a thin stock of currencies does not even equal a fortnight of imports and, therefore, controls, restrictions and preventive measures of the Government which directly affected the productive activity.
Again notable at both ends, similar holes have co-existed and co-exist with exports of the unique complex of oilseeds and grains. That is, they share a space, a contradiction if you will, where since the time of Néstor K. Soybeans reign and the price of soybeans and in which the result usually sings dollars to weed.
In this case, comparable numbers show that from January 2012 to the end of April 2015, during the second Christian cycle, foreign sales from the agro-industrial complex amounted to 75 billion dollars. And that in the same period of 3 years and 4 months starting in January 2020, the foreign exchange harvest was equal to 103.8 billion US dollars, despite a drought that took away half of the production.
The problem is that none of it remains or the litter remains. The rest, billions, is consumed-consumed the flight of foreign currency and maneuvers with exports and imports promoted by a gap, between the official exchange and the legal and illegal parallels, always in the 100% area.
Everything takes place under the umbrella of a government that preaches the defense of production and development and presumes to be national and popular.
But it happens that what happens is, without a doubt, a financial jubilee of the greats, which implies income transfers from some sectors others are also broad and is outlined by interest rates which, step by step, the Central Bank has brought to 97% or 154.8% per annum depending on whether they are nominal or effective.
In the end, the truth is that together with a story that skates everywhere, a situation develops that definitely requires green solutions.
And then who has them? One and only, the Monetary Fund has them and they come out of the agreement that in March 2022 the ruling party and part of the opposition validated by law and that the moderate rebel Máximo Kirchner refused to vote.
This is a package of 10,600 million dollars which the IMF has agreed to disburse towards the end of this year and which the Government intends to advance, if not all, at least in large part.
Notoriously, they would be the resources with which to deal with fairly predictable asphisms of the exchange rate, in the midst of the electoral campaign, between now and the October elections and on the side of a government adrift.
The point is that the directors of the Fund are reluctant to let the dollars go. They set conditions and demand guarantees that protect them from suspicions and internal investigations, derived from the always controversial Argentine case.
Among other issues, they propose that Kirchnerism not use the money for anything other than, strictly speaking, those related to paying off its debt to the IMF. AS intervene in the market without prior consultation or permission, to hold off parallel dollars or bank imports and other operations that may be considered dubious.
Not surprisingly, therefore, last Thursday, in the midst of the tussle, the Central Bank had blocked the sale of reserves and it allowed for a certain hit of the so-called dollar stock market.
Thursday’s batch also included some adjustments to the official exchange rate, in order to contain the gap with the parallels that feeds the maneuvers in which the BCRA still loses. This circle would close, according to versions that do not stop, with a moderate devaluation at the request of the Fund.
Meanwhile, the scarcity clock ticks down to a payment of US$3.45 billion at the end of June. It is a debt maturity with the IMF that the country faces if or if or, better, if it has what. Still, the advance or an advance on the year-end dollar package; of course, to pay the IMF itself.
A fact of the past well related to the present: in January 2014 there was what could be defined as a devaluation of the moderate ones, of 22%, which in fact Cristina Kirchner imposed on the then Economy Minister Axel Kicillof. On the eve of the 2015 presidential election, 2014 accumulated an exchange rate adjustment of 32%.
And while there was nothing even remotely like the superinflation of 2020-2023 during the 2012-2015 Christian cycle, there were indeed some figures back then that sounded like anticipations of what was to come or could come. They all came from the provincial statistical institutes, from private consultancies and from the study center that the opposition had set up in Congress.
Of course, no one has left INDEC who intervened, silenced, even if its technicians knew the figures that were moving.
From this new scenario emerges the proof that the needle had begun to move, even if Guillermo Moreno rebelled against judgments everywhere: it was 12.3% who, on the road to the long double digits, noticed a 2005 survey.
Spicier and more representative of the economic moment, they follow, among other things, 25.2% in 2012; 26.6% in 2013 and, sensationally, 38% in 2014.
Right there, in 38% of 2014, one of those brands appears which, without being a record, has a certain taste of a record. It was the highest price index since 2003, i.e. the highest in 10 years. And even if against 94.8% of the next 2022 that 38% represents just over a third, it is clear that the red light had already begun to turn on.
One detail puts the seal on this process: the Careful Price that Axel Kicillof patented at the end of 2013. It was intended to be a guide for containing inflation which today bears the name of Fair Price and which, as has been amply demonstrated in these ten years, it never contained anything.
Now yes, last or penultimate data for this cross-number bulletin.
In Cristina Kirchner’s 2020-2023 cycle, economic activity appears to be at or close to zero. For the moment, the information managed by Sergio Massa’s ministry indicates a very modest progress in per capita GDP of 1.6% compared to last year, without calculating the record for 2023, which is negative.
Already definitive, the GDP per capita from 2012-2015, i.e. from the second presidency of the CFK, recorded a drop of 3%. Full-fledged recession, skyrocketing prices.
The additions and subtractions of the parts tell where the growth of poverty, the decline in consumption, the stagnation of employment, the reserves below zero and the pilgrimage to the IMF come from. If you prefer, they explain why Cristina Kirchner failed the economy in 2012-2015 and is failing again now.
In case you don’t remember, CFK’s Front for Victory lost in the 2015 presidential election, and if it goes without saying, CFK already acknowledges that next December’s election is so complicated that it’s rehearsing for a show with Javier Milei.
Yes, keep talking as if he had no art or part in the government crisis of which she is vice president and is chaired by one of her delegates. Of course, he has every right in the world to think and say what’s best for him, even if in the end reality has the task of putting things where they really are.
Source: Clarin
