YPF confirmed a new price increase last week, as did other oil companies.
The discussion about the utility bill increase has centered on electricity, natural gas, and running water. Still no words public transportation. But the imminent – though limited – adjustments to some services aren’t hiding the backwardness which has been accentuating the other prices.
The Economist Ramiro Castineirafrom the consultant Econometric proving that the delay in the values †‹вЂ‹ of rates to match the accumulated inflation during the tenure of Alberto Fernández is important.
So, for the case of electricity and gas, in your perception should rise by 88%, only to rise against accumulated inflation between December 2019 and April 2022, that is 153% Sa Telephone and Internet the increase to match the observed inflation should be 50%.
As for public transportationthe increase must be bounded by 46%. for the item prepaid drugsthe required increase should be 27%.
Finally, the gasoline, which rose 11% last week, should rise another 18%.
In any case, those increases would be just enough to recover lost land within 26 months. But then, for the case of public services, there is further discussion: How much should they add for users to pay the total charge without subsidy?. So far, it is estimated that households pay with their resources only 25% of their gas and electricity consumption. For public transport, it is estimated that the cost of city and train transportation tickets is only 10%.
“All the tides of this price control have already generated a suppressed inflation adding 7.8% to the overall indexand moreover, we need to add the indirect effect of the coming months, possibly doubled to 16% total inflation suppressed by controlssaid Castineira. “History shows that price controls are accumulating economic tensions that are becoming impossible to maintain. Treading on prices is driving up public spending because what the private sector does not pay, the State must pay ”, he concluded.
These accounts are about regulated prices. But in the private sector they admitted that if controls were lost and production costs could be shifted to consumer prices, there would be mass consumption products that should rise immediately by about 30%.
A demonstration of these distortions was left explicitly by the company mastellone when it disclosed the results of its quarterly balance sheet, which showed losses of 1,024 million pesos. The company, with a large portion of its products covered by the program Price Carepointed out “These results reflect a new decline in its operating margins, as a result of not transferring permanent increases in its costs to selling prices. As in previous periods, far from strengthening consumer price index, the company absorbs cost inflation, at the expense of its economic results, ”he said.
Source: Clarin
